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soyl4ndo · 3 years ago

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Premiere Night (I) | Lando Norris

Part of the Sweet Dreams series

word count: 8.6k words warnings: slow burn, alcohol, suggestion of harrasment, throwing up, lots of sarcasm english is nog my first language

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 4TH 2020

While you and your best friend, Sophia, are getting ready to leave there is a loud knock on your hotel door. “We need to hurry up ladies.” the person behind the door says. You walk to the door and open it to see Max Verstappen standing there, already dressed up in a nice white button-up shirt and some black jeans. Max walks in and stands in the opening of the bathroom door. “Since when do you care about being on time?” You say, wearing a skirt, a blouse and to top it off some heels. You walk back into the bathroom to finish the last touch-ups on your hair. “I don’t. Just be done already.” and Max walks further into the hotel room. “You hate Netflix, so why are we even going?” Sophia screams from the bathroom while doing her make-up. Sophia was always the one to not care if she was overdressed, so she was wearing a dress, that perfectly fitted her body. “Then don’t come with me. Is it too much to ask for some time with my friends?” Max sits down in one of the big chairs, knowing that it is going to take a while for his friends to be ready. You sit down on the armrest of the chair Max is sitting in. “Of course not. It just starts to feel like you want to go for some other reason.” “Well, I might have heard that there will be an after-party, which we definitely will be attending if the rumors are true.” “Almost done!” Sophia screams from the bathroom and grabs her bag from a chair. “We will see about that after-party, Max. We have a flight at 5 AM.” You fight Max back. Sophia stands with her arms crossed in front of the door. “Are you two coming or what?” You and Max jump out of the chair and the three of you walk out of the door. Max hasn’t said anything back to you, knowing that if he would start this argument you won’t even make it to the premiere of Netflix’s Drive to Survive season 2.

Max, Sophia, and you have been best friends for half a year now. Although Sophia and you go way back. You have been friends since the moment you could walk, even before that to be fair. From the moment you were born, Sophia and you were inseparable. Both girls grew up in The Netherlands in a very small city, just a five-minute bike ride from one another. They went to the same pre-school and middle school, just for high school to split them apart. It was a strange period for both of them. Not being able to speak or see the other every second of the day. It became even rougher on them when Sophia her parents got a divorce. Sophia wasn’t the type of person to really speak about her emotions, she rarely even did it to you. So, after your high school years, Sophia and you went on a trip to Los Angeles. You spent most of your summertime there and basically fell in love with the city. So, as soon as you both got home you started to plan something you never thought you would ever do together. After a lot of talking with both families, and a lot of discussions on how they would handle all of this, the girls officially decided to start looking for an apartment in Los Angeles. In the meantime, their first year of college had started. Sophia wanted to study on the east side of The Netherlands, while you chose to study a bit closer to home. But the distance between your two colleges didn’t keep you from meeting one another and you both still stood behind your decision to move to Los Angeles. You two became very popular on Instagram and even TikTok became a way to show off who you were. Sophia decided to take an extra step and started doing YouTube, you on the other hand were just fine with what you were already doing. Sometimes Sophia couldn’t help but ask for your help when it came down to the creative ideas for editing or content. In a nutshell, the summer of 2019 was a life-changing summer for you and Sophia.

The taxi ride from the hotel in London to the theater in Waterloo was way longer than the three friends has anticipated. “I told you we should have gone with the London Underground.” You shut the car door. “No way, not while wearing this.” Sophia and Max angrily said in chorus. “Whatever fashionistas. At what time did you say it started Max?” You ask while looking around the venue. “I was told to be here at 7 PM, it is 7:30 PM thanks to both of you.” Max states bit pissed off not looking up from his phone. “Max I don’t think we missed anything, just the red carpet.” Max looks up and sees that people just cleaned up the red carpet. “Really something for you to mistake the time Max.” Sophia stated. “I swear it said that it will start at 7 PM.” Max claimed. “Let’s go inside before we actually miss anything.” and you lock arms with your friends. Without any hesitation, the three of you walk inside and Max immediately walks up to his old teammate Daniel Ricciardo. “There you are! I was about to text you, man.” Daniel says in excitement when he sees his friend walking up to him. “Y/N and Sophia, lovely to see both of you again.” and Daniel turns to the two girls who were walking behind Max. “Likewise Daniel.” and you hug Daniel. “We didn’t miss too much, right?” Sophia asks while hugging Daniel. “No, not yet. They just started letting people in.” Just when Daniel finished his sentence Max is being called by Christian Horner. “See you later Dan.” Max says and walks with the girls to Christian. “You three are the first once in.” Christian says and walks away. When the worker asks for your tickets, you see two boys playing around on the stage. It looks like one of them is trying to make words out of the letters on the screen. When he tries to show his friend what word he made up, the boy notices that people are coming in and jumps off the stage. “Y/N? You coming?” Sophia looks at her friend who is still standing in the opening of the doors. “Yes, coming.” and you catch up to your friends. When you walk past the two boys, you make eye contact with one of them and both of you give a little smile. The seats are getting filled quickly and before you realize it, the screen starts to light up. The first episode of the new season starts playing.

As soon as the screen turns black everybody starts clapping and slowly leave the screening room. While walking back to the entry hall everyone gets a glass of champagne. “Now I know why you were invited to this premiere.” Sophia raises her glass and the three friends toast to Max starring in the new season. “Never again.” and Max downs his champagne. Meanwhile, Daniel has joined the table. “Well congrats both of you on starring in this season, I guess.” You say and take a small sip from the champagne. Daniel laughs while thanking you. Slowly there has been a conversation started around you, but you already lost your attention when you see the two boys again. You recognize one of them from the episode you just saw. His cap was shown and had a number on it. What number was on his cap again? Oh yeah, 55. You start thinking. So, then he must be.. what was his last name again. Sainz, Carlos Sainz. All of a sudden she gets dragged out of her thoughts when she hears her name. “Y/N? Sophia?” both girls startle when Max calls their name. “Sorry, what were you saying?” You try to save yourself. “What were you doing?” Max questioned his friend while trying to find what she was looking at. “Me? Just putting some faces to race numbers and names.” You confess and Sophia nods in agreement. “I can just introduce you to them.” Max drags you and Sophia around the hall without giving you a chance to say anything back. Before they reach any drivers Christian holds you up. “Hi Y/N and Sophia! Sorry, I didn’t have the time to properly greet you before.” and Christian holds out his hand. “We fully understand that.” Sophia says and both of the girls shake his hand. “While we are here. Let me introduce you to Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren.” Max says and pushes his friends towards Zak. You and Sophia politely shake the hand of the team boss. “How are you doing?” Christian asks to avoid any silence. “Everything is alright, really loved seeing Red Bull last season.” Sophia replies. “That is good to hear. You Y/N?” “I’m doing fine, but I have to say McLaren surprised me last season.” You reply and smile at Zak. Zak starts laughing. “I like you already. How long have you been watching Formula 1?” Zak asks “Long enough to know that the hard work from the past years is finally starting to pay off.” You reply to Zak’s question. “Well, we have to meet some other people.” Max says and slowly turns away from the group. “We talk later Christian?” Max asks before completely leaving. “My drivers should be around here somewhere. I think they would love to meet some new people.” Zak squeezes in before the three friends leave and winks at you. “Yes Max, we will. Y/N I will remember what you said tonight.” Christian says and tries to look angry towards you. While walking off you mouth to Christian that you’re sorry.

“Y/N did you really have to say that in front of Christian?” Max asks when the three friends have distanced themselves from Christian and Zak. “I can’t hide my proudness for McLaren in front of the CEO.” You confess with a wide smile on your face. “You support McLaren?” someone says behind you. You turn around to see Carlos Sainz and the other boy from earlier. “I do indeed” You reply to Carlos. “I’m Carlos Sainz by the way and this is Lando Norris.” both boys put out their hands and you shake the hands of both drivers. “Nice to meet you..” and you shake Lando’s hand. “..I’m Y/N and this is Max, but you probably know him and this is Sophia.” Carlos and Lando smile and shake hands with Sophia. “Well nice to meet you both”. She says while shaking their hands. “So I heard that some of the drivers are going to an after-party, are you all coming as well?” Carlos directs his question to you. “Well I mean, I don-“ You try to say before Max cuts you off. “We are definitely coming.” Max enthusiastically says. “Max we’re leaving tonight, we can’t,” You say annoyed. In the meantime, some more people have joined the group that was forming in the middle of the hall. “A few hours won’t hurt.” Daniel says and tries to persuade you with his smile. “Exactly, Sophia what are you thinking?” Max turns to Sophia who wasn’t listening clearly to what Max was saying because she caught the eye of one boy that just joined the group. “Depends on who is going?” Sophia questions while maintaining eye contact with the same boy. “Well obviously Daniel and me..” Max starts looking around the group. Some of the drivers and their spouses nod their heads. “..Alex, Pierre, Charles, Carlos and you, Lando?” “Sure, you also coming, George?” Lando turns to his friend. The boy, who Sophia has been staring at, responds. “I’m in for a party.” “So, are you two coming?” Max turns to his friends seeing that they are debating with themselves. “Sure.” Sophia answers shortly. “I don’t know Max. I mean-.” You get cut off by Max once again. “Please Y/N? We haven’t seen each other in ages! Plus it is not often that Sophia says yes to after-parties.” Max puts on his puppy eyes, begging you to come along. “Fine, but not too long.” You sigh, giving in on the pressure your friend has been giving you. “Can’t promise any of that.” Max says and everyone starts laughing. “So where is this party actually?” Carlos says, who was joined by a blond pretty looking girl. “Just a few blocks from here. I think we could all walk there?” Max looks around and everyone nods in agreement. Soon the big group of drivers and friends are walking the streets of Waterloo. When you and Max are walking ahead of the group, you ask Max if he was the one starting this after-party rumor. “I did. I just needed some distracting from..” Max confesses. “I know, no need to say anything. You could have at least warned some of us. I mean we could have gone out partying earlier this week.” You say and pinch your friend. “No, I was busy with Red Bull and by the way, you two were busy with these modeling shoots.” Max replies with a serious tone. “You have made a point there.” and both break down in a laugh. “What is so funny?” Sophia asks when the group has caught up to the two laughing “Y/N being dumb as always. But we are here guys.” Max says and turns to the entry of the club.

WATERLOO, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 4TH 2020

“First round is on me!” Max screams above the music as soon as they step into the club. Max walks off to the bar and the rest starts to form a little circle around the table Max has managed to reserve. “So, I think some of us hadn’t really gotten a chance to introduce ourselves properly earlier. I’m Pierre Gasly.” and he shakes Sophia’s and your hand. “I’m Sophia.” “Y/N, nice to meet you.” and they go around the group. Max has come back with a big bottle of champagne followed by some girls holding champagne glasses. “Cheers to an eventful night!” Max toasts and everybody takes a sip from the champagne. You and Sophia are being dragged to the dance floor by Charlotte, Isa, and Lily. While the girls are having the time of their lives, showing off their best dance moves, the boys around the table start asking Max some questions about his two best friends. “So Max, tell us who are Y/N and Sophia? How do you know them?” Carlos asks. “They are sisters to me. They are truly the best thing that happened to me. Without them, I wouldn’t have been here.” Max responds, begin already tipsy from the drinks he had. You had made your way back already. “Are we being sentimental again Max?” You mingle in the group. “Are you two his sisters?” Pierre asks with a very confused face, just like half of the people around the table. “Is he telling you all we are his sisters? We are not.” You laugh. “Then how are you related to him?” Carlos tries once again. In the meantime, the other girls had made their way back as well. “We met Max last summer, during a party of a mutual friend of ours.” You reply to Carlos. “Very fun party actually.” Max has a big smirk on his face, making the group confused again. “Just a BBQ with some drinks. We chatted for a while, shared some laughs, and then we became close friends.” Sophia continues replying to Carlos. “After that party, we met up a few times, mainly for other parties.” You give in. “Party trio.” Max tries to intervene. “So this night is one of those meet-up moments?” Pierre asks. “Oh no, we both enjoy watching Formula 1.” You say, sounding a bit sarcastic. Most of the boys start laughing. “Quite a lot actually.” Sophia clarifies and makes eye contact with George, who was one of the few not laughing. All of a sudden everybody stops laughing and looks seriously at Sophia and you who are just nodding, confirming your love for Formula 1. “We have never seen you around the paddock, have we?” Lily asks. “No, we have never been asked by our oh-so-close friend.” You reply and sarcastically look at Max who has lost his attention to another group on the dance floor. “Why do I have a feeling that I have met you two though.” Lily looks questioned. “Really? When?” Sophia asks in confusion. “I don’t know, but I recognize your faces from somewhere.” Lily claims, trying to find out where she knows you from. At the same time, the whole group is staring at Sophia and you. “Oh, that could also be because of TikTok or social media in general.” Sophia thinks she found the answer. “You are TikTokers? Or however, they call those people?” George asks a bit harsh full. “I prefer influencer, but if that is more comfortable to you than yes.” You reply with the same harsh full attitude. “No, I haven’t used TikTok. Have you two been in Los Angeles recently?” Lily asks. “We were there two weeks ago.” Sophia continued to reply to Lily. You and George meanwhile, have made up the little tension going on and are now laughing about it. “You two have been looking for a place in downtown Los Angeles?” “Yes. We are actually moving there soon.” Sophia exclaimed, getting the attention back from you and George. “That is it! Well, you two are my neighbors then. Not really neighbors but we live in the same street.” Lily says relieved. “I remember now. You asked us for a screwdriver, but we didn’t have any because we were just looking at the place.” You add to the conversation. “Yes! Congrats on the place then.” and Lily hugs Sophia and you. “Influencers? Moving to Los Angeles? I still don’t get the connection with why you are here tonight.” George says. “We watch Formula 1 every race weekend.” Sophia smiles at George. “Since a very young age to be honest. So when Max finally got the chance to invite us to anything Formula 1 related he did.” You continue to answer George’s question. “Speaking about Max, where did he go?” Sophia asks and everyone starts looking around. “Getting more drinks..” Sophia and you say in chorus making the group break out in a laugh. “Why hasn’t he invited you to any races? I mean if you have been watching it on TV for so long.” George asks when everyone has recovered from laughing. “She didn’t let him.” You answer him. “She?” George looks confused at you. “Max’s ex-girlfriend. Probably the reason why we have been dragged to this club tonight.” You reply. “When the three of us became friends, she didn’t like that we were going out all the time. So every chance she had to ruin a fun moment, she did.” Sophia adds. “But they seemed really happy together.” Pierre claims. “Oh they were, don’t get us wrong. We were fine with her, nothing went wrong really. She just didn’t like the idea of us being around.” You explain. Max has slowly started walking towards the group. “That explains why Max is drunk.” Pierre looks over to Max. “This is just tipsy Max.” You see that Max is approaching Sophia. “I’m not dancing with you Max, not happening.” Sophia is a bit annoyed and flicks Max his hands off of her. “I will Max.” You grab Max his hand and drag him to the dance floor. Max is indeed very tipsy and starts dancing very temptingly with you to the music. Some other people from the group took this moment also to enjoy the music and dance. “Max his ex was jealous basically?” Lando asks, basically saying his first words of the night. “Sorry, what?” Sophia was focused on her two friends and got shocked when Lando started talking. “His ex, was jealous that he might have feelings for any of you? Or the other way around.” Lando explains himself. “No no, none of us have feelings for Max and he doesn’t have any feelings for us, for all I know.” Sophia sees that Lando is staring at you and Max dancing. “He did make it sound like one of you had a relationship with him, and considering the current situation.” George says. “Max gets, how should I say, a bit too much of everything when he gets drunks. So Y/N being Y/N she knows how to handle that and I tried, but I can’t. We are used to this Max. I think we can even say that we don’t know him in any other way.“ and they all start laughing. During Sophia her story, you had walked off to the restrooms to freshen up, while Max was just walking back to the table. “You guys are no fun.” Max says with a double tongue and falls on the couch. “We will be in a second.” George says and gives Sophia a wink.

Meanwhile, at the restrooms, you were washing your hands when you heard a familiar voice. “There you are. I knew you would be here tonight. Come dance Y/N” You turn around to see him. “No thank you, Lewis. I’m doing fine.” You want to walk off. Lewis approached you and grabbed your arm. “Come on, I know you like dancing.” You try to get loose out of Lewis his grip, but with every turn you make he starts grabbing your arm harder. “Y/N finally! I have been looking for you silly.” You look up and see Daniel standing in the door opening. Daniel didn’t walk with the group to the club, which made it impossible for him to find the group once he arrived at the club. “Daniel I was looking for you as well.” You say with relief in your voice. Daniel walks up to you and wraps his arm around your shoulder. “Let’s go dancing.” and they both walk away from the restrooms. You look around one more time just to make sure that Lewis isn’t following you. “Thank you so much, Daniel..” You say when you see that Lewis isn’t around. “..You can go back if you need.” “I didn’t need to go. I just heard your voice and you didn’t sound fine. So I walked in.” Daniel smiles. “How did you know about Lewis?” You ask Daniel while walking back to the table. “Max has told me.” Daniel replies. You approach the table and see that everybody has made their way back. Some with drinks in their hands and some just secretly dancing along to the music. Daniel has still his arm wrapped around you. “Wow, you move on quickly.” Max says disappointed when he sees his best friends standing there. Daniel quickly puts his hands up as if he is held at gunpoint. Sophia sees that something isn’t right about the situation and walks up to you. “What happened?” Sophia whispers to you, but not silent enough because Lando who is standing not too far away could hear the conversation. “He strikes once again.” You reply and Sophia comforts her. Max has caught up to the situation and immediately sits straight up as if he had sobered up. “I’m so going to punch that dude one day.” Max stands up to take off. Sophia, you, and Daniel stop Max from moving any further and tell him to calm down. “No Max, calm down. Daniel was there in time luckily.” You say and put Max down on the couch. It becomes quiet around the table. The silence is killing, although they’re at a club. “Alright, let’s all go dancing. We are here for a fun night.” You try breaking the silence and you drag Max and Daniel to the dance floor, who have each dragged somebody else to the dance floor. They all dance for a while. Asking each other questions and making small talk. All of a sudden Max’s and your favorite number come on. Max grabs you and you start dancing. Sophia looks over to her friends and sees Lando in the background staring at them. At some point, Max spins you too far and loses his grip on your wrist and you slip away, making you bump into someone’s chest.

“I’m so sorry, my friend is-“ You get cut off by the boy who just caught you. “Drunk? Max?..” You look up and laugh. “..No worries, I have seen him like this before as well.” Lando says. You take a step back and comment “Well, now we are here. Why not make the best out of this moment?” “I can’t dance.” Lando says nervously. “Fake it till you make it.” You smile and start leading Lando slowly. Lando picks up quickly and takes over the lead. When the music comes to an end Lando spins you around once more and as soon as the music switches your faces end up really close. “You want something to drink?” Lando quickly lets go of you. You nod and you both walk towards the bar. “What can I get you?” the bartender asks as you and Lando sit down. “Just a water for me.” You say. “Same over here.” When the bartender leaves to get the water bottles, Lando asks “You’re not drinking?” “I was about to ask you the same thing..” and they laugh “..No I have two people to take care of.” You say and look over to your best friends who are still dancing. “Not a big fan of drinks myself.” Lando replies to your question. In the meantime, the bartender had set down their drinks. “Cheers to not being drunk?” You hold up the bottle of water. “Cheers to that.” Lando and you toast. It is silent between them for a second until Lando compliments you. “You’re an amazing dancer.” “So you have been looking all this time?” You tease. “No, no I was basing it on what just happened.” Lando starts to blush. “I was just joking Lando. But thank you, you’re not that bad yourself.” You try to relieve some tension. The silence falls between them again for a split second. “Sorry if my friend offended you earlier.” Lando says and turns around to you. “George? It is all fine. I just don’t like being called that.” You also turn around to Lando. “What do you do on social media?” Lando asks. “Uh, I do some dancing and music. I talk about clothes and education. Creative things as well or modeling. Oh, and I obviously talk about Formula 1 on the race weekends.” You answer with a smile. “I see why you prefer to be called an influencer.” He says and smiles as well. You want to ask Lando a question but you get dragged onto the dance floor by Sophia. Just before you disappear in a sea of people you apologize to Lando by mouthing sorry.

While you and Lando were talking, George had found a moment to talk to Sophia as well. George walks up to Sophia and asks “So you do this quite often?” “We don’t always party when we meet up, but mostly when Max is around we do end up at a party.” and Sophia smiles. George smiles back and wants to ask Sophia something but she cuts him to it by saying “It also barely gets to this point though. Normally Max can control himself a bit better.” She looks at Max who is being a mess around their friend group. “So the love for Formula 1, how did that happen?..” George asks all of a sudden. “..apart from watching it since you were born, you said?” He adds and smiles. “I guess it really is just something that we got used to watching.” “But who got you into watching?” “Oh, our dads 100%. At some point, Y/N and I decided to have our own watch parties because our dads stopped watching.” “Well, that is some dedication there,” George starts laughing. “What got you into Formula 1?” Sophia asks, trying to be polite and not too much of a standard girl meeting a Formula 1 driver. “My Formula 2 career.” George and Sophia start laughing. “My older brother and father were really into karting, so I joined my brother here and there and made my dad my engineer. That is how things started rolling really.” George then answers seriously. “So who are the single ones in this group?” Sophia asks with a smile, trying to show her interest. “Just me and Lando, oh and Pierre but you never really know with him.” “With who you don’t really know what?” Sophia asks, not being able to hear the name clearly. “With Pierre..” and George points at his friend on the dance floor “..one time you think he is single and then all of a sudden he shows up with a girl.” “Oh, Max is something like that as well,” Sophia says and they start laughing. When Sophia hears a specific song turn up, she and you can’t withstand dancing too, she excuses herself to George and walks off looking for you.

WATERLOO, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 5TH 2020

“There you are. You were gone all of a sudden after you danced with Max.” Sophia happily says when she has found her friend. “He is the one who lost grip of me and let me bump into someone.” You say and feel that the heat is rising to your cheeks. “You weren’t dancing with Max the whole time?” Sophia asks confused, not noticing you were blushing. “No? Where is he though?” You start to look around. “I don’t know. But that doesn’t matter, who were you dancing then with?” Sophia turns your head so that she can look you in the eyes. “I have found him. He is dancing with some other girls.” You are trying to avoid eye contact with Sophia. “Don’t avoid my question Y/N” “With Lando.” You feel that you are blushing again. “I knew I was seeing things right. Did you know George, Lando, you, and I are basically the only ones single here?” Sophia says, hoping her friends understand the little hint. “Well I’m pretty sure there are way more people in this club who are single at the moment, but why do you care?” You are confused by the comment your friend just made. “Come on Y/N, you don’t need to hide you’re attracted to him.” Sophia’s face has a cheeky smile. “To who?” You are still confused. “Lando? Don’t tell me there is nothing there.” Sophia is now standing still in the middle of the dance floor. “What? I just met him. Besides I don’t have feelings for anyone at the moment.” You even get a little offended. Max joins the two girls who are just standing still on the dance floor. “You don’t stand still on a dance floor..” He comments, looking at his friends knowing something is off “..What is going on?” He is now also standing still on the dance floor. “You might have seen it as well. Y/N and Lando there is something there, right?” Sophia tries to convince you by asking Max this question. “Oh definitely. You know what, I will send him your number.” and Max grabs his phone out of his pocket. “No, why would you do that! Max give me your phone! There is nothing.” You’re trying to grab Max his phone out of his hands. “Done.” Max shows the text to you and Sophia. “For those in need. Y/N’s number 😉.” the text reads. “Great, now I have random people texting me.” and you walk off pissed. “Just some people you met tonight.” Max shouts trying to reach you. While you walk off to the bar, Sophia is joined by Charlotte, Lily, and Isa. “Can I just say that you two are super good dancers? I’m jealous honestly.” Isa says not noticing you left. “Thank you, also from Y/N,” Sophia smiles. “We should definitely hang out together. Can I ask what your numbers are? If you would like to hang out as well of course!” Charlotte asks. “Yes sure.” Sophia says and gives Charlotte both her and your phone numbers. Charlotte makes a group chat for just the girls. “We have officially a group chat now!” Charlotte exclaims. “We should dance to that!” Lily joins in on the excitement. While the four girls are having fun on the dance floor, you are still at the bar, Max has joined his friends at the table. “Why did you send Y/N’s number in our chat?” Pierre asks when Max has made his way to the table. “She could use some dates, both of them actually. They are so single.” Max replies to Pierre. “I figured you had a relationship with one of them since they aren’t your sister.” Pierre says. “No man, I could never date them. They are my best friends.” Max says back. When you finally got your drink you walked back to the table, hoping not many people would be there. You sit down, still being pissed at Max for what he just did. “Everything alright?” You then hear someone saying in front of you. You look up and see Lando standing there. “Sort of, I guess.” You say and Lando sits down next to you. “You look pissed.” Lando commented, hoping he just didn’t make things worse. “I am.” You say, normally you wouldn’t want to talk about it, but right now you didn’t care. “How so? We are at a party.” Lando smiles. “Max, Max is just being annoying.” “You pissed at him because of the text?” Lando asks politely. “Yes, I don’t know why I’m pissed at him for it, but I am.” “I think I would be as well. I mean, like what, six random boys now have your phone number. We could be stalkers for all you know.” Lando says hoping he can cheer you up. You start smiling at what Lando just said. Without both of them noticing, you are sitting really close to one another and slightly are brushing your arms against each other when they move to talk. “So are you from around here?” You then ask, being fully cheered up by Lando. “Not really, I live in Woking.” Lando says. “Woking? Oh, close by the McLaren Technology Centre, quite handy.” You smile. “I suppose you are not from around here.” “You are correct. Born and raised in The Netherlands.” Y/N wanted to continue the little conversation that they were having, but they got interrupted by someone. “I noticed you were staring at me after the screening.” Carlos says and joins you and his friend at the table. “Sorry?” You reply, being shocked by the way Carlos just stated that. “After the screening, when everyone went back to the hall, you were staring at me, weren’t you?” Carlos explains himself. “Oh, I didn’t mean to make it obvious. I was trying to put some faces to some names. Your face was the only one I recognized and could pair with a race number.” You nervously start laughing because you feel caught. “It’s fine. But my race number? I’m not wearing it.” Carlos looks at his outfit. “No in the episode, your cap revealed a number so I figured it must have been your race number. Since it was on your head, I made the connection when I saw you in the hallway.” “Impressive.” Lando says trying to join the conversation. “I truly only know race number and last names.” You smile uncomfortably. “Let’s test that then.” Carlos says, to keep the conversation going between Y/N and his mate. “Let’s start easy. What is Max his number?” Carlos asks at first. “33, that is way too easy Carlos.” You emphasize the fact that it was easy. “Alright, what about Daniel’s then? You seem to know him.” Carlos continues his questionnaire. “Oh, taking big steps now. I’m feeling the pressure, but it is 3.” You say without any hesitation letting Carlos know that this was also an easy one. “You know what, I will make a big step. What is Lando his number?” Carlos then says while looking at his friend. Lando is just sitting there, making a questioned face, putting you slightly under pressure. “No pressure at all here..” You joke and start to really think about this one. “..You drive for McLaren right?..” You then ask Lando as a joke, hoping he will give a clue in any sort of way. But both of the boys don’t move a muscle. “..Alright, not making things easier here..” Lando is slightly getting offended by the time you are taking. “..What am I talking about, your race number is 4.” You then say, proudly smiling but also doubting yourself. “You passed!” Carlos states and gives you a high five. “I don’t know mate. For all I know, she just went with 4 because her last answer was 3.” Lando says trying to challenge you. “Alright, give me last names and I will give you numbers.” You take on the challenge. Not knowing what names to expect. “Every driver you met this night, apart from the ones you already answered.” Lando says and looks at you, patiently waiting for an answer. “Not going easy on me, are you? Well, Leclerc is 16. Pierre was his name, right? Is number 10. Alex is 23, I reckon, and George must be 63.” You say trying to convince Lando after taking some time to think about the last two. “I mean, while you’re at it. How about the new people for the upcoming season?” Lando says knowing whatever you’re going to say he can’t confirm nor deny. “Mate you don’t even know that yourself, you barely know them from last season.” Carlos comments, taking away the whole challenge. “Guess I outplayed you there.” You say and pat Lando on his back. Lando fake smiles which made both of you laugh. “Guess you just got lucky.” He says once you stop laughing and smirks.

Just when the three of them recover from all the laughing, everybody from the group slowly comes back to the table. Max on the edge of being wasted comes back with more champagne. “Champagne time!” Max shouts and opens the bottle of champagne. Without really having any choice Max hands you and Lando a glass of champagne. When Max finishes his toast everyone downs their glass of champagne, except for Lando and you, you just take a little sip out of the glass. When everybody puts their glasses on the table Lando and you look at one another and start laughing. Max notices that you both didn’t drink the whole thing, so he takes your glasses and downs them himself, making Lando and you laugh even more. Within a second Max is off to the dance floor once again and so are the girls. This time you are going with them. They all dance for a while when you feel some hands on your body. As quick as those hands touched you, you turned around and had your hand ready to hit the person behind you. “Max you idiot. I would have hit you.” You growled when you realize it is just your friend. “I need to talk with you,” Max whispers in your ear and he drags you to a corner of the club. “What do you want to tell me?” You ask when you are standing in a corner. “I want to take her back to the hotel,” Max is struggling for words and pointing at a girl, who is dancing with her friends. You recognize the group, Max has been dancing with them for quite some time tonight. “You can’t Max. We have to leave early in the morning.” “But I can make it quick. You know-“ You cut Max off, not wanting to hear anything about how he would spend the night with the girl. “That is not happening Max. You are not bringing her to the hotel.” You walk away. When you arrive at the table you see that some people are having a conversation, while others are still enjoying the music on the dance floor. “Y/N tell them how it is possible, that we didn’t know who they were, although we are obsessed with Formula 1,” Sophia is slightly struggling to pronounce some words. You notice that Sophia is tipsy and support her by putting your arm around her. Without realizing you’re now facing Lando. You look him in the eyes and start talking. “We genuinely have never been bothered to know what was underneath the helmets. No offense to your faces..” and you smile, noticing that Lando is also smiling. “..the sport has been with us for our whole lives. So after a few years, you realize race numbers, teams, and last names are easier to remember than faces.” You say. “So how does it feel to finally meet the faces underneath the helmets?” George asks while maintaining eye contact with Sophia. “It is a pleasure.” She replies with a big smile on her face. While those two slowly start having their own conversation, Lando moves over to you. “You’re making faces again..” He whispers “..this time you look uncomfortable.” “I hate to say it, but it is Max again.” and you both laugh. “What did he do this time?” Lando asks. “Just got too much detail on some of his plans,” You say, trying to spare Lando the same image you’re having in your mind right now. “You lost me there.” He says. “Don’t blame me if you get scared for this. But I just had to hear Max explain to me what he wanted to do to one of the girls in this club..” Lando immediately starts making the same face you made a few minutes ago. “..I tried to save you.” You start laughing. “Oh lord, why would he share that with you?” “If I knew Lando, I would do anything to never be the victim again,” You say and start yawning. “Am I boring to you now” Lando sarcastically says. “No, no. What time is it?” “Almost 2 AM,” Lando says after quickly looking at his watch. “I don’t want to ruin tonight, but I think it is time for us to leave,” You announce after the private conversation with Lando. Some of the people in the group had already left or wandered off to other friends. “Really Y/N? I just started to have fun.” Sophia tries walking away from you. “I have noticed, but we have a flight to catch,” You say and drag Sophia back. “Fine. Where is Max?” Sophia says and you both walk off to the exit.

“I don’t know. I thought he was behind me when I walked away from him earlier.” You continue walking outside when you both bump into George and Lando. “Everything alright?” George asks noticing that the girls are looking worried and Max is not with them. “We have lost Max, which is usual by now. But we really need to go and don’t even have a taxi. This is going to take forever.” You are slightly getting pissed. “Why don’t Sophia and I look inside for Max? Lando and you stay outside to call a taxi and catch Max in case he comes outside?” George suggests. “I agree with that.” Sophia says and walks inside with George before you or Lando could say anything back. You let out a big sigh and roll your eyes. “So I will call a taxi? Then you can think about where Max might be.” Lando takes his phone out of his pocket and starts dialing for a taxi. “Thank you.” You say after Lando tells you that he has ordered a taxi. Shortly after you start shivering. “Here take my jacket, before you start freezing.” Lando says noticing that you’re not only shivering but also trying to keep yourself warm by taking little dances steps. “No, it is fine.” You say continuing to shiver. “It’s going to take a while before either Max or that taxi is coming.” Lando says and smiles at you. You give in and let Lando take off his jacket. When Lando has taken off his jacket he puts it over your shoulders and you thank him with a smile. It is indeed taking a very long time for either Max or the taxi to show up. Then suddenly a girl comes walking out of the club with Max by her side. “There you are!” You say with relief seeing her friend walk out alive of the club. “I will let George know we found him.” Lando says and makes a quick call to George. You nod and walk over to the girl. “I suppose this is your friend.” the girl says. “Yes, he is. I’m so sorry for whatever embarrassing he has done.” You take over the slouching Max. “It’s all fine. He was actually quite nice company.” the girl says and walks off. But she changes her mind and turns around and says “Uh… Could you give him this? Only if he remembers me after he has sobered up.” The girl hands you a piece of paper. “Yes of course. May I ask for your name, in case he does start asking about you?” You ask, hoping Max will remember her. “Kelly.” She smiles and walks off. In the meantime, George and Sophia have found their way back outside, and the taxi arrived. “Come Max, we are going to the hotel.” You walk with Max towards the taxi. Max only grunts and stumbles into the taxi. Sophia is saying her goodbyes to George and Lando and when she walks towards the taxi she also stumbles to get in. “Let me help you..” You say and help your friend into the taxi. “..Sorry that for both of you the night had to end like this.” You say when facing George and Lando. “It is alright. I hoped you had just as much fun as your friends.” George says and he smiles, Lando just nods. “Yes, it was an eventful night. Thank you again for your help with finding Max and you for calling the taxi.” as you turn to Lando. “No problem. Glad to hear you still had fun tonight.” and he is now smiling as well. “Oh, your jacket. Almost forgot.” You start smiling and give Lando his jacket back. “It would have found its way back eventually.” Lando receives his jacket with a big smile on his face. “I’m not so sure about that..” You start laughing. “..Well, since I probably won’t be seeing you any time soon, I guess this is goodbye,” You say and start gathering all courage to say goodbye to George and Lando. “What?” Lando and George say at the same time. “We are going back to The Netherlands now and a few weeks later we are officially moving to LA.” You explain “Really?” They once again say in chorus. “Yes, so if it is alright with you I would like to say goodbye with a hug?” You smile softly. “Of course!” George says and he hugs you. “Yes, no that seems appropriate right now.” Lando says struggling to get the right words out. You hug Lando as well, only your hug is a bit longer than the one you had with George. “Well, I hope that we get to see one another eventually someday. But until then, all the luck with the upcoming season and know that we will be cheering from a very different time zone.” You smile and step into the taxi. Lando and George wave at the taxi until it is around the corner.

“So that was a long hug,” George says while walking with Lando to their taxi. “What?” Lando just coming back to reality after replaying some parts with you of tonight in his head. “Your hug with Y/N? It was longer than mine.” George emphasized on Y/N. “No, it only looked like that mate. You got some lipstick on your cheek though.” Lando says trying to switch the subject of the conversation. “No, I don’t,” George replies quickly but does wipe his cheek to make sure. Lando starts laughing.

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 5TH 2020

Luckily the ride back from Waterloo to the hotel in London didn’t take as long as earlier. “Max, stop working against me please.” You’re trying to get Max up walking, but at the same time on the other side is Sophia, who is still struggling with every step she takes. You unlock the door of the hotel room. When you reach the beds you drop Max on one bed and Sophia on the other. Max sits up in bed and says “I don’t want to sleep here.” “Max we have given back the other hotel room this evening. Just close your eyes for now.” You see that Max falls back onto the bed. You start gathering the last few things from the floor and put them in a suitcase. In the corner of your eye, you see that Max is walking towards the bathroom. “Max? What are you doing?” You don’t get a response, but from the puking noise, you know that you need to run to the bathroom. As soon as you’re in the bathroom you close the door. Hoping that Sophia hasn’t heard the noise, otherwise you had to deal with two people throwing up. “Alright, Max..” You start rubbing Max his back and he goes again “..You done?” Max nods and sits down on the floor. You grab a washing cloth and make it wet. “Use this to clean your face. I will be right back.” You say and walk out of the bathroom. Knowing Max, he will not be able to stand up from that place. So you grab two pillows and your phone. Might as well get something to do while being stuck. “Good, let’s sit down here so that you can lay down on this pillow..” Max nods and immediately lays down on your lap after you sat down next to Max and put a pillow onto your lap “..So how long until the next party?” You ask before Max falls asleep. “Long.. Very long,” Max replies and you laugh. All of a sudden you get a text.

Next Chapter

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queer-coded-camaro-driver · 3 years ago

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I have a lot of opinions about your post about st4 feeling off so I had to inbox you lmao

I agree with pretty much all of what you said!! And I feel like the not wanting to watch the entire episodes (cause I felt the exact same way) also in person had to do with them being so SO long. Like normally when the episodes a bit slow it doesn’t matter cause the whole things only 45 minutes tops but these episodes seemed to just drag on at certain points and with the season being split up the way it is there seemed to be little to no payoff.

I have hated that ever since season two ST has began splitting up the group more and more each season and as much as I love Joyce hopper and Murray their characters are stronger when interacting with the kids and I had high expectations for the Hopper in Russia parts and felt kind of let down with how it mostly just felt like a regular old pow story and had very little upside down elements until fighting the demo dogs at the end it almost just didn’t feel like stranger things and the only thing that saved the Murray Joyce parts imo is their comedic chemistry idk it felt very disconnected from the actual show

And yeah!!! The marketing made it seem at least to me that billy despite being dead was gonna be a big player this season but the only person he ever impacted was max and the rest pretended he didn’t exist!! And the duffer brothers rlly fumbled the bag with Dacre he’s such an amazing actor and has chemistry with anyone who he’s put on screen with he’s rlly a show stopper when it comes to acting and made such a huge mark on the show the past two seasons it felt off not having him in this one

YES!!! You get me.

I'm just finishing up my MA in English and this season made my degree fucking vibrate with anger. There were so many good opportunities for character growth, for the group to get closer, and for everyone to find some sort of happiness... but that would be too easy.

I'm so tired of all these shows just compounding trauma on their characters without providing any sort of emotional out for the audience. I feel like I just keep getting hit with harder and harder situations and the humorous moments aren't enough to make up for it anymore.

And, not to be Harringrove trash, but getting Steve and Nancy back together makes ZERO sense after the breakup they had. They don't even have to make Billy/Steve canon, just please don't revert to shitty "first love" tropes to keep your queer fans at bay.

Plus Jonathan is WAY more responsible and compassionate than they depicted him this season, and the inclusion of Eddie was cool but would have been way more fun if Billy was also there.

Let traumatized, queer-coded villains have some redemption. Let the metalhead boys learn to vibe together. Billy can teach Eddie not to be a coward and Eddie can help Billy chill the fuck out sometimes. And BOTH OF THEM can help protect Steve and the kids during their Upside Down shit.

I just... Season 4 made very little narrative sense. The Duffer bros and Netflix's CEO are welcome to meet me behind the nearest Arby's cause it's fisticuffs time.

#thank you #this was wonderful #let's be pals #stranger things #stranger things spoilers #stranger things s4 #billy hargrove #steve harrington #jonathan byers #the party st #the party #harringrove #netflix stranger things #i hate it here

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mynameisnowwyrm · 4 years ago

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Spoiler warning

TL;DR horrible adaptation, but very enjoyable on it’s own

(Also just wanted to say I was so sure I was going to hate this bc of what’s different but they changed so much the cartoon and the live action are barely connected in my head)

Okay my review will be split up into two parts: fate: the winx saga as an adaptation and as a standalone work

As an adaptation:

0/10. Maybe 0.5 if I’m being generous.

The things that were unchanged from winx club:

There are characters named Bloom, Stella, Musa, Aisha, Sky and Riven

Aisha, Bloom, Stella and Sky resemble their cartoon counterparts

Riven is an asshole

Bloom is a dumbass

Magic exists

The specialists exist

Main characters go to schools for magic and specialists respectively

The dragon flame is a thing

Witches exist

Other than that it’s a completely different show. The plot vaguely resembles season 1 of winx club only in that Bloom is trying to discover her true heritage. Musa, who is supposed to of East Asian descent is not, Flora was not included and in her place is a different character with similar powers, Tecna was excluded entirely ( I believe this was to distance the show from the futuristic elements of winx club and focus only on fantasy, which doesn’t make sense since they changed Musa’s powers ).

The magic system was changed. Fairies don’t on the regular transform since in the show the know-how to do so was lost, though Bloom does unlock the ability in the finale. Instead of each being a fairy of an individual concept, everyone’s powers ale element based, with Musa’s powers being changed to her being an empath. While this does feel more generic, it makes more sense from a world building perspective and I can see why they changed it.

The fashion is horrible. You will never be able to convince me teenagers dress like that. One of the reasons the original cartoon was enjoyable was all the colourful, fun clothing. The clothes feel dated and too mature for the characters, like I can see a twenty-something person in 2013 wear some of those outfits. It especially feels like a missed opportunity since 2000’s fashion is coming back into style.

The characterization of some of the characters compared to winx club was hit and miss. Riven was an ass and Bloom was impulsive and naive, which is accurate, but Stella, oh Stella was a disappointment. Stella was a jealous, manipulative bitch, which in context of her character backstory makes sense, but is so far from her original portrayal. Cartoon Stella was spoiled and at times self centered, but she was also genuinely kind, helpful and bubbly. To see her character take a 180 and become the all too familiar jealous ex archetype was upsetting.

Now, aaaaall that being said, I don’t believe we should judge this as an adaptation. They changed so much that it is quite literally a new story. So let’s see how it stands up on it’s own.

Summary, taken from the wiki

The series tells the story of Alfea, a fictional boarding school where teenagers study. The world inside this universe is not only magical and full of monsters, but it is also a world of real teenagers who do the most common things: make friends and enemies, go out and of course... fall in love. They are eager to find their place in this world. This universe is different from the one we have all known for a long time.

The attention is focused on a group of proud teens, also well-designed female characters. Sometimes they are heroines, sometimes weak girls. Sometimes they are friends, sometimes rivals. Of course, they are not perfect, but they are real. A group of girls who did not know each other until they are included in the same team inside a school that is strange to them. They will meet forces that are beyond their control and things they do not understand. But, throughout the series, they will find themselves, form an indestructible bond, and transform into powerful and strong girls, ready to change not only the supernatural world, but also ours.

Character summary:

Bloom is a newly discovered fairy from the human world who is attending Alfea college in the otherworld. There she meets her new roommates: chatty Terra, athletic Aisha, uptight Stella and stand-offish Musa. She also meets Sky, Stella’s ex, who is training as a specialist.Shortly before coming to Alfea, Bloom discovers she has magic powers by almost burning her house down and killing her parents. She is distraught over this and it is why she is eager to gain control of her powers.It is discovered that Bloom is a changeling, a barbaric practice where a fairy baby is exchanged with a human one. This leads Bloom on a quest to discover her true heritage.

Musa is an empath, she can feel the feelings of everyone around her. To shut them out and escape she listens to music through her headphones. This leads to her initially coming off as uncaring when Terra tries to get to know her better.

Terra is an earth fairy with a particular talent for making plants grow. She is very nice and chatty, eager to make friends, but not afraid to stand up for herself. She struggles with finding someone to like her and compares herself to “cool girl” Beatrix who has boys following after her.

Aisha is a water fairy who swims twice a day every day. She comes off a a good person who wants to make friends and do the right thing. She also tries to do everything in her power to protect her friends.

Stella is a light fairy and princess of Solaria, the realm in which Alfea resides. She is repeating her first year due to an event prior to season one where she lost control of her powers and blinded her best friend. She is very uptight due to her perfectionist mother and tries to exert control in every other area of her life, when this doesn’t work, e.g. when someone flirts with her on-again-off-again boyfriend she gets jealous and causes trouble. She is also generally rude to the people around her.

Sky is a specialist legacy and Stella’s on-again-off-again boyfriend who has an interest in Bloom. His father was a famous specialist and he was raised by his father’s best friend.

Riven is Sky’s roommate, best friend and a genuine asshole. He insults and antagonizes everyone around him and gets involved with Beatrix. He seems dissatisfied with the life of a specialist.

Beatrix is an air fairy with a lightning powers. She seems mysterious and looks to be the villain of the season. She has enlisted the help of Riven and Dane.

Dane is a first year specialist who first seems to be friendly with Terra but gets sidetracked after spending time with Riven and Beatrix.

What I didn’t like:

The world building is sparse and the magic system is generic. I feel like things could have been better expanded upon. Throughout the show they bring up archaic fairy magic but it’s never really explained how that’s different from current fairy magic.

The interactions between Riven and Dane come off as a bit queerbait-y although they could be setting things up for a second season.

Everyone is constantly so rude towards Terra. Even her supposed friends are mean to her. What gives?

Stella was constantly rude to everyone but by the end they are all the best of friends when she really hasn’t changed much. Also Stella being the jealous controlling ex archetype and not enough people calling her out on her bullshit.

What I did like:

For a Netflix teen drama there is surprisingly little sex between the teenagers. This might be subjective but it was refreshing for me.

Again subjective but I could definitely relate to Bloom’s antisocial teen flashbacks

Beatrix was a fun villain

Though the story might be a little generic, I felt it was compelling throughout. I genuinely wanted to know what happened next.

The story was well paced. It never felt like anything was dragging along

Overall:

The show was definitely enjoyable to watch. There is a lot of room for improvement. It sometimes felt like different plot lines were unconnected and the costume choices leave a lot to be desired. Aside from that they set up a solid story and likable characters (some of whom I love love and love to hate) which I very much want to see further developed in the future. As a stand-alone work 6/10

#fate the winx saga #winx club #winx stella #winx bloom #winx sky #winx #winx riven #winx musa #winx terra #bad adaptation #good show #fate the winx saga review #winx review #fate the winx saga spoilers #winx spoilers

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shawn-mendes-post · 4 years ago

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Late Late with Harry Styles

A/N: Hello! I have been inactive for a while. I think I am going to split this into two parts depending on what I want to write. Hope you like this chapter. I used Olivia Rodrigo’s deja vu lyrics in this chapter. I am almost at the end of the first album, which means the Shawn Mendes chapter is coming to a close for a while. I think it is time for her to focus on the relationship with Sebastian and the trauma with Tristan.

Hello again! It has been a while, and I hope you missed me. I know I missed every one of my readers.

So much has happened that I need to catch everyone up. In October, (Y/n) comes out with her new boyfriend, Sebastian Stan. There has been controversy due to their age difference, but who cares? I mean, if in her position, I would date him too. He is hot for his age and acted in Marvel movies. He has amazing eyes and hair that I want to know if soft.

No Shawn. And I mean at all. When asked, he did not comment and moved on to the next question. Harsh. Is there trouble in paradise between the two friends? If so, when did this start? I have a theory but must wait till next time; loves.

Then in November, Shawn Mendes and girlfriend Camila Cabello sang Senorita at the AMA's, where (Y/n) would perform as well. During the couple's performance, the camera was on (Y/n) face, which seemed a little grim. It is a good thing her man was next to her, dancing along to the beat. I wish I had someone.

She would perform, and Shawn was under the magnifying glass next. A lot is written across his face, and we can't wait to dig deeper into next time. (Y/n)'s performance consists of her songs that were already released and added her new single, Starving. Wonder who the muse is?

(Y/n) has a lot of projects coming up that will lead to her being busy. What to expect? She will appear in a Netflix original series, The Umbrella Academy, season two; not much is known about her character. She is also resuming her role in Stranger Things. However, we do know she is not in this season of American Horror Story. Hopefully, next season if she has the time. Also, she was in The Devil All the Time. Starring with Tom Holand, Robert Patterson, and current boo, Sebastian Stan (rumor where they met). She also hinted at a full album realize in the coming days.

I am excited and can not wait! I hope the album comes out before Christmas. There are rumors the album will be about Sebastian, while there are rumors it is about her dearest friend, Shawn Mendes. Wonder what Shawn will think about the album. Get it? Oh, well, Shawn Mendes is also dropping his album soon called Wonder. So much is happening in December, and I am ready for it. I do have questions on what (Y/N) will do for Christmas? She has not been close to her family or Shawn. Will this be the first Christmas for Sebastian and (Y/N) to celebrate as a couple?

Time will tell. XOXO Dawnn S.

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It was December now. Shawn was becoming more intimate with Camila and becoming open about the relationship. He seemed happy. Was he? A part of him was okay, but there was a part of him sad. He still hasn't contacted his best friend (Y/N). He never went five days without any contact, and this is something new that he did not like. He always told her everything because of their strong bond, but he ruined things.

She has been busy writing and producing new music. Shawn knew because he would get recommendations to watch new videos of her songs on YouTube. Shawn wanted to deny that he did not listen to every song, trying to decode any messages. He would deny that he spent countless sleepless nights watching her videos, trying to see if she was affected by their loss as he felt. She also was a part of numerous movies and TV shows that haunted Shawn. He would make sure to go to the theaters alone, without being seen to get a glimpse of her.

Shawn forgot how busy she likes to keep herself. She would starve herself due to not having time, but he would always bring her food. Shawn would take her out for her to have fun and relax. Shawn could see how much she was working due to the various works and the album she is about to release. Her mind was always thinking whether an idea for a song or a Christmas gift for someone. Shawn fiddles with his phone, debating on if he should call her.

"Hello?" Her voice said, having a calming effect on Shawn. He felt this made him stronger to speak up. He realizes he wanted to reach out before he lost the courage.

"(Nickname)?" He asked, hesitantly, thinking she would hang upon him. He silently prayed she would talk to him and not hang up.

"Shawny, good to hear from you. " She admitted, glancing at her boyfriend, smiling brightly at him. Sebastian shoots her a look, curious about the fact she answered. Sebastian smirks, moving closer to her, placing a hand on her knee.

"How have you been?" He asked, really enjoying hearing her voice. He missed smelling the scent of pumpkin spice and cinnamon when he hugged her.

" I've been well...you?" (Y/N) asked, raising an eyebrow at her boyfriend, knowing he is up to something. She is trying to pay attention to the phone call, trying to hide how much she missed hearing Shawn's voice.

" G-good," he stuttered out, blushing at how lame he must have sounded. Shawn felt like an idiot. He should be apologizing to her, but all he could say is," I miss you," breathless, waiting for her response.

Silence.

He started to panic, thinking he made a mistake in telling her. He starts to run a hand through his hair. Shawn bites his lower lip nervously as his eyes shift around the room. Silently, he was glad that he was alone and did not have to worry about being embarrassed in front of his friends.

" I miss you too, Shawny," she finally replied, hating how weak she gave in to her feelings. Her boyfriend moves his hand higher up her thigh, fingers moving closer to her panties. She closes her eyes, knowing she should stop Sebastian, but loved how crazy he makes her; yearning for him to touch her, she spreads her legs. She silently thanked that she picked a skirt to wear as she bites back a moan when he teases her with his finger.

There is so much she has to tell Shawn. Tell him how much she loves him. How much he broke her heart when she found out he was dating Camila Cabello. However, nothing comes out as she lets out a soft gasp, watching Sebastian getting on his knees, pulling down her panties. She could only watch the smirk on his face as he lifts her skirt, seeing how wet she became from his touch.

" I would like that very much," Shawn replied happily, not having a clue about what is happening on the other side. Shawn felt like he was on his way to get his best friend back. Shawn couldn't believe how simple it was for him to talk to her. Yeah, he still had feelings for her, but that didn't matter. He was with Camila, and that is who he loves.

(Y/N)'s eyes shut as she tilts her head back, enjoying the sensation of Sebastian's tongue not being able to hide her moans anymore; she says a rush goodbye to Shawn, a promise to call him another time before hanging up. Quickly, she pushes Sebastian off her, grabbing his arm and leading him to the bedroom.

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(Y/N) lets out a snicker, reading the text messages between Sebastian and her. He loved to tease her about her crush on Harry Styles and the fact she told him if she had the chance, she would get with Harry. Sebastian was surprised to find out he was not her celeb crush, but he did become close. She did not count Shawn as a celeb crush because he liked him before he got famous. She thought he was the one for her, and they would get married when they were 20. However, things did not turn out as planned, and she is `moving on. Currently, she is in the blue room, watching from the screen as it plays the show.

"Hi, mate. I am just by your place, and I was wondering if you could help me get to work," Harry says on the phone, "great, thanks." Hanging up the phone, James appears, smiling and saying, "hey."

Harry starts to drive as the two converse with each other. "How are you feeling about hosting?"

"It will be fine," Harry said, smiling as he nods his head. He then asks for advice, listening to every single word James says, finding it amusing. After faking laughing practice and clothing advice, Harry turns on the radio. Watermelon Sugar comes on, they both begin to sing to the song, jamming out as drive.

Harry's phone begins to ring, which makes them stop for a moment. Harry picks up the phone, "ello?" James shoots a confused look at Harry, wondering who is on the phone. "Yeah, I am close near you. I would not mind, yes. No worries, love," Harry said before hanging up. He turns to James, "I need to make a quick stop."

The next thing James can see is (Y/N) outside, with multiple shopping bags, smiling apologetically. "No way!" James exclaimed, not having to know the two had this planned for the segment. The two men get out of the car, grabbing some of the bags and placing them in the trunk.

"Sorry about this. I was Christmas shopping, but my car broke down. I did not need my manager to know I left the studio to shop. I also knew Harry was going to the studio soon, and it was fate that he was close."

The three make their way into the car as the car drives off towards the studio. "I thought you were busy?" James said in a questioning tone, not understanding what is going on.

" I was, but I knew I just had to appear. I just made sure to finish getting everything ready for the album to drop in a couple of days."

Harry looks in the review mirror, meeting (Y/N)'s eyes, "should we listen to music?" Laughing, (Y/N) nods her head, watching Harry turns on the radio once again, the sound of Starving. The three sing-alongs, jamming to the song before there is a new song that comes on. James and Harry stay silent, not knowing the words to the song. (Y/N) smiles, hearing her newest song that dropped out a few hours ago.

Car rides to Malibu Strawberry ice cream, one spoon for two And trading jackets Laughing 'bout how small it looks on you (Ah-ha-ha-ha) Watching reruns of Glee Bein’ annoying, singing in harmony I bet she's braggin' to all her friends, saying you’re so unique (Hm)

(Y/n) sings, stoping to let the pre-chorus play, feeling proud she is almost done with her album. She can move on to the next chapter of her life soon and begin to forget about Shawn.

So when you gonna tell her that we did that too? She thinks it's special, but it's all re-used That was our place, I found it first I made the jokes you tell to her when she's with you

(Y/N) resumes singing, feeling she is giving a major hint on who the album is about. She initially did not want to drop the song because of the hints of heartbreak and the concept of him moving on. There are already people trying to connect each song to her friendship with Shawn.

Do you get déjà vu when she's with you? Do you get déjà vu, hmm? (Ha) Do you get déjà vu, huh?

Do you call her, almost say my name? 'Cause let's be honest, we kinda do sound the same Another actress I hate to think that I was just your type And I bet that she knows Billy Joel 'Cause you played her "Uptown Girl" You’re singing it together Now I bet you even tell her how you love her In between the chorus and the verse

(Y/N) stops, as she only wanted to perform a snippet of the new song. James raises his hands, not believing what happened. "Is that a new song of yours?" He asked, turning to look at (Y/N), not stopping from smiling. (Y/N) nods, a flush on her cheeks as she ducks down a little. "Yes, I want people to hear more of my new songs. My album is dropping tomorrow, and it seems like a good time. I need to move on with my life, and releasing my music is the change I need." The next thing the three know is that they arrived at the studio.

(Need to let me know if you want to be tagged.)

@hxneybee-uwu

@shawn-youth

@sspidermanss

@turtoix

@unpredictabledinosaur

#shawn mendes #Shawn Mendes Imagine #shawn paul #reader insert #(y/n)#Late Late Show #harry styles #Sebastian Stan #shawn x y/n #shawn x reader #shawn x you #shawn #friendship #love #heartbreak #olivia rodrigo #deja vú

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whoiskt · 3 years ago

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Today on Things Nobody Asked For: My review of every anime I’ve seen/am currently watching.

First, I want to split this list into three parts. Before I met Will, after, and ones I never finished. Just because I think it’s funny. Since I’ve started doing Cosplay Photography, however, it’s something I personally choose to get into.

Quick explanation of my ranking system:

S-tier: Excellent, would recommend

A-tier: Great, would generally recommend if you have similar tastes

B-tier: Good, maybe recommend

C-tier: Meh, it exists if you’re into that

D-tier: Bad, wouldn’t recommend

F-tier: Horrible, I actively recommend you DON’T watch this

PRE-WILL ERA: (not in order)

1. Death Note

I saw Death Note around the internet a lot back (deviantart, youtube, talking about it on IM) in the early 10′s and was interested in the premise. It was readily available on the brand new streaming platform, Netflix. This all makes me feel very old.

I’m sure you’re aware of the plot.

Death Note, is, without a doubt, An Anime. They spend a lot of time just talking about doing stuff. It doesn’t sound appealing it’s ridiculousness in this aspect is one of the things that make the show so great.

A show where there’s someone hiding a major secret and you’re just waiting for them to get caught or pull it off are some of my favorites. Death Note is a classic. Everyone knows this.

S-tier

2. Supernatural: The Animation

No one fully understands why this exists or who asked for it. It’s extremely cursed. It generally follows the plot of Season 1/2, with a lot cut out or reworked for a japanese audience.

I do like the art style but the animation is what you would expect for a 2011 anime series made to get Japan to watch The CW’s Supernatural. It’s been many years since I watched but I remember a lot of the changes weren’t really improvements by any means.

However, I am happy exists if only for the Abridged series it has on youtube.

D-tier

3. Princess Jellyfish

This one came to me recommended by tumblr. I don’t remember why tumblr recommended it but I’m guessing it was for the drag character.

If I remember currently, the drag character (I don’t remember anyone’s name) is trying to teach a group of pathetic girls how to be stylish and cool.

I have mercifully started to forget the details of this show over the years. What I remember is the drag character is just some rich boy whose entire motivation for dressing in drag is to piss off his rich parents. I was disappointed by this and the character as a whole. In fact, I found the entire cast kind of irritating. Except for the Kill Bill girl, who was the best part of the whole show.

No, the best part was it was only 1 season and it was short. So, I was able to finish it despite hating most of my time watching it.

F-tier

4. Angel Beats

This was another recommendation from tumblr. I think there was a compilation of funny moments on the show that got me good so I decided to watch for myself.

There’s many mysteries abound in Angel Beats and I think it’s best experienced going in with little information about it. Basically, there’s a group of students who are fighting for their existence in limbo/purgatory against a character named Angel.

It’s hilarious and it’s heartbreakingly sad. It’s still one of the best animes I have ever seen despite being one of the first.

S-tier

5. Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt

I believe this was a tumblr recommendation but certainly came from somewhere on the internet. Sometimes compared to South Park, P&S is a very raunchy comedy/action/supernatural show. I do not like South Park. I do enjoy P&S. The show follows two angels who were kicked out of Heaven for bad behavior and must defeat evil ghosts to earn their way back up to Heaven. Panty has her own side-quest of sleeping with 1000 men. Shenanigans ensue.

I usually don’t like very raunchy/sexual shows but this show just has some sort of charm to it. It’s funny and weird and surprisingly heartfelt at times. The fights always end with a live-action puppet being blown-up. It’s a show that really takes risks along with the risque.

Watch it and if it seems to be your sense of humor then you’re sure to enjoy it. Otherwise it’s just going to be a weird and comfortable journey for you, haha.

A-tier

WILL ERA

1. Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Jojo was on my to-watch list for many years. A lot of con buddies I had became Jojo fans, and my favorite youtubers frequently made references to it. However, convincing myself to watch anime was always a difficult task, and ESPECIALLY for a series I knew that was as long as Jojo.

On our second date, Will made a reference to stands that I was able to catch, and I stated I would be willing to watch the show. So, it began.

Each part of Jojo is a unique story, with connection being all the main characters from each part are related in some way, and each one is “Jojo” is some way. Theoretically, each part could be watched as it’s own story and being completely understandable. And each is different enough that they really deserve their own rankings. I don’t want to do that here though. Rest assured, some parts are great, some are ok, and some kinda suck.

A-tier

2. Attack on Titan

AoT was a show I originally began Pre-Will and made it about half-way through the first season before I became busy and wasn’t able to watch it anymore. Along with the fact it went on a long hiatus and no one was really talking about it anymore, I never got back into it. Until season 3 starting airing and Will recommended I “get caught up.”

This show is another one filled with mystery which can be REALLY difficult to keep yourself from googling spoilers. Basically, some kids join the military to defeat Titans, who terrorize them and keep them living inside their walled up community.

To me, it’s the mysteries and the slow reveal of answers--that really just give you more questions-- that make this show so good. Although it has some flaws and missteps, it is one of the best examples of good story-telling I have ever seen. Attack on Titan is not just a good for an anime, it’s good media.

S-tier

3. Death Parade

I had never even heard of this before Will but he has excellent taste and this proves it.

At it’s base, Death Parade brings the newly dead to play a game (darts, bowling, etc) that determines where they’ll spend the rest of their afterlife. There’s more going on but if it was only this I would still be super intrigued and want to see a hundred more episodes.

Sadly, it is only one season, but it’s perfect as is. I cried a few dignified tears watching. I would recommend this to anyone.

S-tier

4. Dorohedoro

This one was recommended to me by @oubliette-od and I put it on in the background while I was working on some projects. I was quickly drawn in and ending up finishing it in record time. (I don’t usually binge watch shows.)

Dorohedoro is completely 3D animation, which isn’t my usual style but 3D animes have come a long way and I think this is a very fitting animation style for the series. It follows Caiman, an amnesiac, who is trying to find the sorcerer who turned his head into a lizard.

This show is gritty, blood, gross, action-packed, but also funny and self-aware. It sets up and interesting universe and all the characters are very compelling that it’s become an instant fave of mine. I love their wacky hijinks.

A-tier

5. Hunter x Hunter

HxH is not a show I started watching because I found the premise particularly interesting, or because anyone really recommended it to me. I started watching this one simply because it was one of Will’s top 5 shows and I love him

This is one of those classic shows that everyone rates highly. I see it’s charm and definitely think it improves greatly with each arc, but I can’t help but feel it is a tad overhyped.

The premise is a boy, Gon, wants to find his father by becoming a hunter. A ”hunter” can be anything really but the license for it is incredibly hard to obtain. People die during the test for it. He makes friends and does stuff to try and find his deadbeat dad.

When I finished it, I was sad to know there wasn’t more because it wasn’t really complete and likely never will be. The characters are charming, the power system is a little too complex, and the fights are sometimes interesting. It’s really An Anime though, which can have it’s draw backs in over-explaining and still frames. At times! It gets better.

B-tier

6. Puella Magi Madoka Magica

This was one of the first animes Will recommended me. I had my doubts because, first, I am not really a fan of the magical girl genre, second, the cutesy art style was off-putting, and finally, I knew it had a dark twist and was worried it would be edgy.

Although the art style did take some getting used to, Madoka ended up being an excellent subversion of the magical girl genre without becoming 2 edgy 4 me.

It follows a young girl who is deciding whether to make the contract to become a magical girl and fight witches for the rest of her life in exchange for a wish.

Now, something everyone failed to mention about this show which I love SO MUCH is the experimental-esque animation. It is a welcome difference from other anime and it is so beautiful.

This anime took me so much by surprise and it’s message is amazing. It really left me thinking about it for days and weeks after. One of my favorites.

A-tier (I’d rate it S-tier but I think it can be a little niche in taste)

7. Demon Slayer

I started watching Demon Slayer almost exactly a year ago because I had plans to see the movie. I only had about to week to watch it all so it was more of a task than enjoyment when I binged it. My friends were really into it which helped me get into it myself.

The show follows Tanjiro, after his sister is transformed into a demon, he fights to keep her safe and trains to become a member of the Demon Slayer Corps to find the demon who killed his family.

What this show does best is character design. The characters all sport some of the most iconic outfits and hair you’ve ever seen. It’s a big title so it frequently gets beautiful and complex animation. Great fights.

In many other qualities, it is pretty average for what you would expect. Zenitsu is so annoying he drags the whole show down.

B-tier

8. Neon Genesis Evangelion

Now here’s a show I watched solely because Will had never seen it. It’s everywhere and everyone knows about it because it’s another classic! So ha! Will! I’ve seen an anime you haven’t!!

This show is about children who have to get in mechs and fight off “angels” who are destroying stuff. It has very interesting lore and many biblical references (that don’t really make sense all the time). It also has a lot of movies and other shows tied to it that I can’t even remotely figure out what I’m supposed to watch or not. They really milked this property for all it’s got, and then some.

I’m not generally a fan of mech anime or mech anything. However, the show is more philosophical rather than action-based. The show ended so horribly (no budget) so they made a movie that made that fixed that. Overall, it’s DEFINITELY an over-hyped show, but it has it’s moments that make it deserving of being called a classic.

B-tier

9. Assassination Classroom

This one I impulsively started because I had heard about it a few times and I just wanted to know what it was even about.

Well, it’s about a weird squid-like yellow guy threatening to destroy earth, and has made an agreement with the government to teach a jr high class while they all try to assassinate him. I guess it is politically motivated to be considered an assassination, technically...

The show fails to stand out to me, yet I still find it entertaining. Animation? Average. Characters? There’s a lot of them and they’re mostly okay with juggling all their stories for such a large cast. Plot? It’s a little weird, as you might guess. Humor? Meh. Hitting emotional beats? For the most part, yes.

It’s enjoyable but not much more than that.

C-tier

10. Mob Psycho 100

Mob Psycho was one of Will’s favorites, so naturally I had to watch it. He knew I would love it.

It follows a middle school boy, Shigeo/“Mob”, with psychic powers, as he is mentored by the fake psychic, Reigen.

This show has everything! Great characters! Compelling plot! Great humor! Character development! Hard-hitting emotional scenes! Great lessons! Amazing animation!

And openings that are freaking bops!

S-tier

11. Komi Can’t Communicate

I started this one because I saw it on Netflix and was interested in a show about social anxiety, since I have pretty severe social anxiety myself.

Komi, well, she can’t communicate. It’s a slice-of-life humorous anime that follows her in her journey to make 100 friends.

The show has it’s charm. Komi and Tadano are cute. They have crushes on each other and that’s very endearing. Some of the friends Komi makes are.... not great. For example, one of them is a lesbian who is obsessed and commits creepy crimes to get to Komi. It’s bad representation of lesbians and I’m not a fan. In general, the whole class considers Komi a god, which would be flattering to see such a socially anxious character be so well-regarded! Except it’s just weird and creepy.

C-tier

12. Erased

As a fan of Death Note, I checked out this anime by the same director with Will.

Erased is about a manga-writer who is transported back in time for a second-chance to make a difference in elementary to ultimately prevent the murder of his mother.

All and all, Death Note feels like a more complete story although they both have their flaws. I felt like the ending has less of a climax to it in this which brings it below Death Note, but I don’t want to get too caught up in comparisons. They’re both intriguing in their own ways.

B-tier

13. Doctor Stone

Dr. Stone is an anime me and Will impulsively started together after it’s first episode came out.

Like Attack on Titan, it has a very interesting premise with questions you want answered. Dr Stone is about all the humans in the world being turned into stone by a strange light, until thousands of years later Senku is miraculously released from the stone and begins a new era.

I don’t think it reveals information in as interesting bits as AoT does however, Dr Stone is a science-first show also focused on fun around it. The animation doesn’t always keep up but the characters are all enjoyable and the plot is entertaining.

B-tier

14. Jujutsu Kaisen

(STILL WATCHING!) So, I actually watched the prequel movie first, with Will who had seen the show first. Me? I thought the movie was pretty good! Will? He thought it was kinda boring and mediocre. The difference was the villain, Geto, seemed to really die. The character, Maki, was new and interesting and the reveal about her backstory with her family was compelling. But, if you see the show, you KNOW all this already. You know Geto doesn’t really die, and in a big way none of this really matters. I realize now how poor the movie would seem if you watch it in order.

I’m still watching it but I do suggest you choose my watch order and watch the movie first. Especially for Maki’s character, her backstory is very brushed over in the show. Overall, the movie is a bit better at “show don’t tell” or at least telling in an interesting way.

The show is pretty light-hearted and most the main characters are very likeable.

Tentative B-tier

15. The Disastrous Life of Saiki K

There’s usually some level of worry when watching a foreign comedy that the culture’s humor will align with your own. Pretty much regardless, there’s always going to be some jokes going over your head. Language-based jokes in Japanese usually can’t even be translated well to English.

However, Saiki K manages to be an absolutely hilarious show regardless.

The show follows our titular character, a psychic high-schooler, and the weird cast of classmates who like to gravitate to him. He doesn’t think of them as friends, but he definitely cares for them so, they’re friends. The show gets cute and heartfelt at times too.

The best anime comedy show if rated by humor alone.

A-tier

UNCOMPLETED ANIME:

1. Made in Abyss

One of Will’s favorites. He started playing it impulsively at a friend’s house one night. I saw the first couple episodes but after that night we never picked back up watching it.

It’s not that the show is bad at all, just random happenstance that I didn’t finish it. Would love to go back and rewatch and complete it.

2. Banana Fish

I heard this was good so I wanted to check it out on my own. It’s a fast pace show and the plot is not un-compelling. However I got lost in whether the two characters were actually going to get together or if it was some sort of queerbait? I ended up googling it because I didn’t want to get disappointed and it turns out they are ambiguously gay. I lost interest after learning that.

For whatever reason though, I feel like this would make a good live-action. Like, if Netflix wanted to pick this up I could totally see this working. It’s set in America so...

3. One Punch Man

Only saw the first episode. It wasn’t bad. I’m sure it picks up. Hearing that the second season sucks was a huge bummer and stopped me from watching more.

4. Shiki

I started watching this in preparation for a cosplay shoot with someone dressed as Sunako. It didn’t really have the tone I was expecting for a horror anime. Really not scary at all. Very anime-y. Not my style.

5. Soul Eater

I tried watching this so long ago that I can’t really remember the first episodes or why I didn’t like them. I remember being surprisingly bored. Maybe they spent too much time talking or something.

6. Inuyasha

Boring.

7. Promised Neverland

First season was sooo so good. Second season was ill-paced garbage. Stopped watching because I heard it was only gonna get worse. Sad! It had so much potential.

8. Interviews with Monster Girls

This was the anime that made me stop taking recommendations from tumblr. This show is borderline pedophilic and absolutely disgusted me. I think it was recommended for the teacher/teacher romance but one of the teachers is the one who is doing the interviews and all the students have crushes on him. They do very inappropriate things with him and he just allows it. These are his students. DO NOT WATCH THIS SHOW.

#think i got them all lmao #lifeblogging

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captlok · 4 years ago

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Pacifism Isn’t A Character Trait

Or: MLK Day is Upon Us so Let Me Do You a Learn

Or: As An Aang Stan I Got a Bit Over-Zealous But Lemme Explain Why For A Hot Minute

Plus some History and Tumblr commentary that even non-ATLA fans can chew on

And by ‘hot minute’ I do mean this is going to be a long meta, so strap in. For those of you who just might be tuning into this debacle, I, a person who has not used Tumblr, much at all, except for the last half year, ran into some trouble.

If you wanna skip the whole TLDNR interpersonal stuffs and get straight to Why Aang is the Best Thing Since Sliced Bread, I will embolden the relevant parts, and italicize the crit of Korra, if you want that alongside.

I was excited that ATLA was seeing a resurgence due to the Netflix remake. I wasn’t even trying to apply any steep expectations for it. (learned not to do that the hard way with the last live action adaption, and to a much lesser extent, ATLOK, since it had good . . . elements, *ba dum tsshh*)

So, these are a couple aspects of the issue: (1) Even on the internet, I am extremely introverted and until recently mostly came for content, not socializing. My main online interactions thus far have been in forums and artist-to-artist on DA. Tumblr is still very strange to me because it splits up its ‘threads’ so you can’t see all the replies if a certain pattern of users responds in their own space. I’m not even 100% sure it’s in chronological order, and replies are not nested next to each other so you can look in the comments and someone will be replying to something you can’t see in that window. And also since it is a bizarre hybrid of a blogging system, posts are somehow considered ‘owned by’ or an ‘extension of’ OP in a way forum threads are not. (2) ATLOK was good in a cinematic and musical way, to be sure. It also had some good concepts. I can go into it just appreciating it for the worldbuilding and be somewhat satisfied. But the execution was terrible. I was on AvatarSpirit.Net for years, and If I had maintained my presence on ASN to current day and had gotten around to downloading their archive now that the forum is dead, I would include some links to other peoples’ detailed analyses on just how flawed both the plotting and Korra’s frustratingly flat learning curve was especially in the first two seasons. But, that is a task for another day, and only if people are interested.

No, what I’m addressing today, on the issue of Korra as a writing exercise, is how Mike and Bryan said specifically they wanted to make her ‘as opposite to Aang as possible’ and in so doing, muddied the central theme of the original ATLA series.

Now, again, I was mainly an art consumer for my first major round of ATLA fandom. Tumblr is an alien beast to me. But, after I write my first major Aang meta, talking about how amazing it is that he has the attitude he does, and how being content in the face of this overwhelming pain and suffering is an ONGOING PROCESS and an INTENTIONAL DECISION and not a simple PERSONALITY TRAIT, I start hearing that Aang gets a lot of hate from the fandom. Now this would be bad enough if it were merely people not liking his crowning moment of pacifism because they don’t understand the potential utility (I’ll elaborate on that in another post) or the ethics involved.

Aang is easily the most adult member of the Gaang. But he apparently gets hate for his few moments where he actually acts his age, a preteen, and maybe kisses a girl in a historical timeframe in which ‘consent’ discussions were probably nonexistent. Even in the present day, we are still practically drowned in movies that reinforce this kissing without asking trope. And even some female bodied people complain that asking kills the mood! But somehow he is responsible and reprehensible for this, even though the first time she kissed him back. I’m only going to get into the pacifism discussion today, but that was just another layer of annoyance bouncing around in the back of my head. Other peoples’ crit of Korra that was stewing in my subconscious, plus this Aang bashing, which thankfully I had not directly read much of, made up the backdrop of gasoline for the match that set it off. Even that seems a pretty melodramatic way to phrase what I actually said, which was: Aang, on the other hand, lost dozens of father figures and was being steamrolled by Ozai who was gloating about genocide TO HIS FACE, yet he still reigned in all that quote, ‘unbelievable rage and pain’ (The Southern Raiders). We Stan Aang, the Superior Avatar. No I did not f**king stutter. #AangSupremacy In another meta, someone complained that I was too defensive of Aang as a character and didn’t apply literary analysis enough, which I quickly rectified.

What set this off? Someone was kind of indirectly praising the line from Korra, “When I get out of here, none of you will survive” To them it was emotionally resonant or whatever, and I have to point out that no, it was a martial artist not having control of their state of mind, as is the bedrock of the practice. It was never addressed by the narrative, which is a severe oversight. I had a conversation with someone in the chats, making this distinction between Korra’s character traits and life philosophy. If she were to kill people while enraged and she was fine with that, that’s one thing. But if she regretted it, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. People argue that she comes from a warrior culture, unlike Aang.

Never mind that warrior monks are a thing. That’s what Shaolin monks are. You can be a pacifist and skilled at fighting. Those things are not mutually exclusive, which is the whole point of Bagua, Aang’s style. And also, Katara’s style.

That’s one reason I like Kataang so much- their congruent styles. Both of their real world martial arts are dedicated to pacifism, even though ATLA specifically doesn’t spell that out for Katara and her learning arc.

There was a meta where someone briefly tried to argue that knowing “martial arts” is against pacifism. No. Quite the opposite. I’d argue that you are not a true pacifist unless you know exactly how to handle yourself if someone attacks you. If you are not in a position to make conscious decisions about how much force to use, rather than merely operating on survival instincts, that is not pacifism. Or at least, not any energy or effort towards pacifism as a practical everyday tool. I’ve made a few attempts to learn some tai chi and aikido, and it’s improved my physical and mental health, but some other things have gotten in the way. #lifegoals

I’m not going to tag the unfortunate soul whom I was replying to, because they’re probably tired of all this, but I’ll be sending them a PM to say that I’ve made this into a different post, because as I mentioned before, threads are somehow considered “owned” by OP, so it’s been pointed out to me that I should separate it. I also said, I have basically ZERO respect for Korra uttering violent threats when the writers already minted a far more emotionally devastated and yet still resilient and centered character earlier in their franchise. People always try to excuse away people who genuinely like Aang more. As if it’s just nostalgia or whatever. For me, no, it’s absolutely not. It is respect for a character who stands toe to toe with real people who are kind in the face of overwhelming injustice. (I have another meta on that).

Both OP and people in the chats try to make excuses that she wasn’t raised as a pacifist, and that would be fine if they had addressed it with Tenzin and she had stated outright that she was rejecting pacifism and mind training. As it is, we are left with this nebulous affair where the lines between ideology and personality traits are blurred.

We are told she “has trouble with spirituality” but what does that even mean? Does she have trouble with focus? Does she have trouble relating to the canonically real spirits? And pacifism specifically nor inner peace that it flows from is never even talked about as an extension of spirituality, which is canonically tied to airbending.

“Aang didn't have to deal once with the loss of his autonomy in atla” OP claims.

This was after I had noted that Aang was getting kicked around by Ozai and was most likely going to die. Similarly, someone in the chat rejected the idea that a 12 year old trapped in a stone sphere that is heating up under a cyclone-sized blowtorch feels powerless.

Sorry but that’s flat out ridiculous.

No one wants to admit that both of these people were faced with similar situations, and when push came to shove, one showed his LIFE PHILOSOPHY through conscious effort, and the other was abandoning the basis of martial arts, which is, no matter what the situation, keep thinking. Hold the panic at bay. Non-attachment would have served her well in this situation. Tenzin should have told her this. Before, or afterwards. It should have been addressed in the writing.

People see this as “bashing” Korra, and oh well, can’t help that. If I think the writers didn’t follow through on their themes, that is my concern. OP said I was “offended.” No, not really.

I wasn’t offended by the post itself, or its commentary. Thought I made that pretty clear.

This is not dramatics. Let me be blunt.

As a ideological pacifist, and an actual practitioner of meditation, based on Buddhism, NOT just the fan of some show, I am for calling out writers who write one way from the survivor of genocide, and then stray from that ‘thoughtless aggression is immoral no matter HOW hurt I am’ to ‘let’s not address this character’s aggression in the narrative whatsoever.’ OP attempted to derail by accusing me of being racist or sexist against Korra. Also ridiculous. It honestly should have set me off more, but it didn’t.

Meditation is about reigning in your emotions. Managing your anger when it gets out of hand, and digging down to the roots of it. Being responsible for your own behavoir. Acknowledging ownership of your own actions. Not blaming anything YOU DO on anyone else or any circumstances in your life. Like an adult, or should I say, an enlightened adult.

Or at the very least, that is the ideal ypu strive towards while being imperfect in the present.

. . .

Now.

I’m going to quote a passage in a Google Doc of mine, even though I’d really prefer if you asked to read the whole thing, with context.

“What do humans do when it is necessary to, or greed makes a nation want to recruit?

They go to the army to get trained, right?

Granted, having someone scream and get spittle on your face is, in the grand scheme of things, poor preparation for having bullets whiz past your chest and grenades shatter your ears. And, what do you do to prepare you for the pain of getting your leg blown off? Hopefully, nothing. Like taking a test where you only got half the study guide. But, it’s about the most ethical way to go about it, right?

Not everyone even sees action. So any more more extensive mental preparation for physical pain than that, and you’d have people definitely protesting.

Well, as it turns out, pacifistic protestors themselves, if they were in the right time and place, also very intentionally do this type of mind training. Except, when they did it, they actually did sit still and took turns roughly grabbing each other and throwing each other down and in some cases, even kicking and bruising each other.

Turns out, those pacifists are, in some ways, more hardcore than the army.

Why is this?

Because a pacifist’s aim, unlike a unit, who wants to gain the upper hand in a situation, is to grit their teeth and grind their way through all those survival instincts, and totally submit.

In this, they aim to get the sympathy of the public, who clearly sees they are not aggressive, or a danger, no matter how much the footage is manipulated or suppressed.

In this, they hope to appeal to their attacker’s better nature.

Make them stop and think, wait a second, are these people a threat like we’re told they are? I’m attacking someone who’s letting me beat them up. Or a bunch of people. All forming a line, and letting us peel them off. Or sitting, and bowing their heads. If I’m on the ‘right’ side of things, the law, why am I doing this?

It’s not like a bully, who’s just a kid.” They’re more self-aware.

And might I add the situation influences a pacifist’s actions too. There’s no reason to let a single or a few random attackers beat you up if you can evade or disable without permanent damage.

Pacifism is a dynamic set of responsive actions informed by values. Not a proscribed set or a checklist.

But in terms of organizing against state power, and recording wrongdoing, which unlike during the Civil Rights can happen from all angles from smart phones nowadays, these are the motivations.

“So, the pacifist knows this, and that’s why they go through all that trouble of training themselves to, not only submit, but not turn tail and run, either.”

See, a character trait is something like being a morning person, or ways of handing information, or a given set of emotions a character feels. Once you cross over into actions, you must make the distinction of whether an impulsive character agrees with their own uncontrolled actions, or is embarrassed or remorseful. Those are life philosophy. Now sure, one type of person or character may be more likely to subscribe to pacifism, but there is no gatekeeping on what you have to feel or how you look at things. You can be easygoing, or feel all the rage in the world, but as long as you at least attempt to have a handle on those desires and feelings to where they do not cross into actions, you are still doing the work of metacognition, which is what martial arts and its accompanying mind training are for.

It’s what we see Aang do.

He’s informed us, during the Southern Raiders, on how much rage and pain he feels.

Pain points, TRIGGERS, that were directly struck at when Ozai gloated over him.

He joins with all the past Avatars for several moments, and just like every other time he is in the Avatar State, he is enraged. He wants to exact revenge on the unrepentant grandson of a baby murderer.

We see it when he turns his head away, face still screwed up in anger.

For another example, I could cite my difficulties in being aware and reining in my tongue sometimes. I know the roots of these issues and I seek to let them go.

It’s just that process takes way longer than Guru Pathik would have us assume.

In fact, I would even say that Aang’s portrayal throughout the three seasons is not strictly a realistic representation of at least the sad side of grief. I addressed that a little when I talked about real life figures. But what it IS, is a metaphor that cuts very deep to the heart of pacifism. As I showed in that Doc . . . There is no limit of suffering a pacifist is willing to go through, internal or external, for the preservation of peace.

This was demonstrated during the Civil Rights, and with Gandhi and all his followers beforehand, inspiring them. The pacifists’ method of swaying hearts is probably the reason BLM exists in such numbers as it does today. Will the types of narratives that correspond with their full stories of the way they collectively planned and trained for and approached conflict make it into fantasy media? I’d say, probably not. For a host of reasons.

It could be hoped for, I guess.

But we DO have Aang.

As for myself, whether speaking sharply is an “action,” per se is up for debate- certainly it doesn’t seem to violate the non-aggression principle put forth by the vision of a “stateless society.”

For another example, let’s take my explanation at the beginning. I am examining how circumstances affected my actions, and now am attempting to fix it, if indeed it needs to be fixed.

At least one person said that it not so much what I said, but how and when I said it. I don’t actually think I’ve said anything “wrong” per se. So I have to figure it out.

[I’m considering splitting up this next part into a second post, as it only slightly relates to pacifism itself and is just kinda some more commentary on Tumblr itself- Tumblr discourse, as it were]

[I’ll put more brackets when I’m done in case you want to skip this part as well]

An interesting social difference between Tumblr and other places is this command you often get, “don’t chat/reblog/message me back.”

This is interesting for several reasons. For chats and reblogs, other people may be following the “conversation,” so it’s actually pretty rude and presumptuous to tell a person not to respond to whatever you said, because other people watching still may be interested in your take.

In a forum setting, if someone involved in a conversation doesn’t have anything left to say, usually they just don’t respond.

This method would work perfectly fine for Tumblr, but for some reason, maybe its super odd format, probably due to the “ownership”/“extension of self” I mentioned at the beginning of the essay, people don’t tend to do this.

Now, in comment sections, sometimes you’ll run across an amusing sort of “mutually assured destruction” where two people both say this to each other. You’d better stop responding. Omg just give up. Why are you still arguing. Etc.

But see, no matter where this behavoir pops up, and no matter who starts in on it, those who do this usually want to have the last say on the matter.

Instead of merely not replying, they want to assert verbal control over the conversation.

Tumblr, in its weirdness, is also sort of like a mutant comments section. You can post comment section threads as your own post.

Which is one reason why I’m puzzled when people say ‘don’t read the comment sections’ when Tumblr is so popular.

I’m an oddball in that I browse comment sections for fun.

Probably due to alexithymia, I didn’t really comprehend the emotional toll it takes on many people, so the warnings to “stay out of comment sections” read to me like “hey don’t eat that dessert.” After I’m done with the ‘meal’ of an article or art, I like to see what lots of different people have to say about it. The fluff. Anything vitriolic I either blip over, or extract anything useful, or if I judge the person is reasonable enough, I might engage.

Sometimes I mis-judge on how reasonable someone is, and I shrug and move on after being cussed out or whatever.

In this, I suppose I succeed much of the time in being a verbal pacifist.

[But let’s get back to the more serious stuff.]

We’re talking about what is done in life or death situations, here.

For myself, I may in the near future be working more with dangerously mentally ill people. I’ve had a little exposure to it through various means. Nurses are obligated not to retaliate against patients, and those who have, have been fired in some situations. Again oddly, this is not primarily what triggers my anxiety. Unfortunately enough, this requirement has also resulted in nurses getting seriously injured and violated. I hope to influence whether “no harm” techniques such as tai chi and aikido and arm locks may be allowed. The voluntary philosophy I was luckily already on board with is enforced by bureauacracy, directly relevant to my potential profession.

Were someone to get involved in a dangerous profession, such as a police officer, their moral duty would also be to own up to any spur of the moment anger or fear they acted on.

It’s just that their bureaucracy acts differently, in excusing their actions.

Ideally, they would be taking steps far in advance, to avoid this often-cited fear of death reaction. As training pacifists like Aang do.

And yes, army people are trained differently than police officers because the army, often, even when threatened, is supposed to avoid engagement or deploy deterrents that are non-lethal almost all costs, unless ordered otherwise. Whereas American police are given pretty much complete discretion and often not taught de-escalation techniques. Even police from other nations are better trained in that regard.

Enter the ironically named @avatarfandompolice whose account description should really speak for itself. Combative, dismissive, and their attention-hungry bread and butter is to find people they think it’s acceptable to ridicule. They basically tried to say trauma was a valid excuse to take out your anger on other people, and in this situation, potentially kill.

Now, does this hold up in the real world? Yeah, sometimes. Especially if some law breaker or law keeper has not been given the anger management tools, they perhaps could be excused, or better yet, rehabilitated.

But especially if anyone finds themselves in dangerous situations, or intends to put themselves in such, it falls to them to do this preparation.

As an aphant, I am at a bit of a disadvantage, compared to an average martial artist, being unable to visualize an attacker. But I still attempt it.

As the main “police officer” of the world- the coincidentally blue clad figurehead that is supposed to keep order, it is apparently fine for Korra to not do the work Aang did to keep level. To blow it off as too much trouble: clearing the First Chakra of fear. For herself or others. And its resultant anger. Had she had access to the Avatar State, the authority figure pretty much would have killed people. This is what the “fandom police” and a certain chat goer ultimately support. Maybe they didn’t understand it that way, and since the second had blocked me, they will also never see this explanation. Unless I were to share it in Google Doc form I suppose.

So, I responded. “Remember kids, you are not responsible for your own behavior if you have the excuse that someone else did something bad to you.” A frighteningly common sentiment on this site.

When it’s low stakes like CAPSLOCKING or internet fights, that’s not such a big deal. But what happens if this attitude leaks into the real world? This isn’t even about Korra or Aang anymore, it’s about toxic mindsets. I didn’t know fans taking pro-Korra posts as anti-Aang was a common in the fandom. I’ll say again I’ve only just gotten really active on Tumblr like the past few months. This is about pacifism itself. MLK and his hardworking, training followers (yes some of them sixteen and POC and not super-powered like Korra) facing down firehoses and staging sit-ins long trained for would shake their heads at this defense of reactionism.

Pacifism is not a Personality Trait.

It is deliberate actions and preparation taken over a period of time.

Then the “fandom police” tried more of this, and these two conversations ensued, the comments with another user resulting in the title and main thesis of this essay:

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638777472806273024/avatarfandompolice-response-to-my-independent

https://captlok.tumblr.com/post/638806142933467136/the-plight-was-not-what-i-was-getting-at-it-was

#atla #lok #atlok #atla meta #pacifism #martin luther king #civil rights era #history #blm #mlk #mlkday2021

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mmoondance · 4 years ago

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Netflix did us so dirty by cancelling CAOS.

Spoilers ahead:

It’s like they forgot about half the shit that occurred in parts 1-3.

-The Blackwood twins ended up serving little to no purpose.

-They made me kind of hate Roz and Harvey this season. They were all kind of dicks to Sabrina. Which I know she kind of disappeared on them for a bit there in part 3 and yes their lives went on without her. But she was lonely and tried to get them to hang out with her but they all declined. Then Roz confronts her about faking the Bloody Mary incident and is all like “Sabrina, we’re your friends. If you want to hang out you just need to ask us.” And kind of blames the entire situation on her which again her witch life didn’t really coincide with their’s in part3 but come on girl. She’s already asked to hang out and you all declined. Harvey is always being an ass. He literally falls in love with her best friend right after breaking up. Sabrina while upset happily accepts this and doesn’t you know get bitchy about it (btw I love that she at least got to snip at them during her drunk speech, all I ever wanted was for her to show even just a tid bit of bitterness towards that.) Then when the Void is within her and she makes his father disappear his immediate thing to do is be a dick to her whenever he doesn’t even know the situation and she’s obviously unstable. Like dude chill, you’re really not helping by screaming at her.

-Nick getting back with Sabrina felt too rushed.

-Also I’m sure people noticed but that scene where her and Nick come dancing happily home and he gives her that necklace that matches his is like exactly what happened with her and Harvey in episode 1 of part 1. Except Harvey didn’t have a matching necklace. I felt like shit was repeating itself there and did not like that they wrote that part in there.

-Lucifer being than easily dethroned by Lilith also seemed dumb considering it took them a while to get to where he was somewhat chill.

-Sabrina Morningstar meaning more to him than Sabrina Spellman seemed so stupid to me. Like they are and have always been the same person, I mean I get it, the one treated him more like a father but that’s besides the point.

-Both of the Sabrina’s dying...um okay...at first I was like throw them both into the graveyard out front and they’ll be fine but I think you have to be in the ground 11 or 13 minutes after you’ve died to be brought back so I guess I get that.

-Roz being a witch and Harvey accepting it so easily. Idk I know Sabrina like brought his dead brother back to life and him having to kill him adding to why he treated Sabrina like a dick for episodes after had part of why he didn’t accept Sabrina as a witch right away. But it felt like just a bit too quick for him to accept Roz. I like Roz as a witch don’t get me wrong, but it felt super rushed and she got little to no development after it was announced.

-Theo and Robin felt like background characters this part, I was disappointed, they are adorable together! I also feel the Hobgoblin’s didn’t get justice done by the small clip we got of his friend. There could’ve been something cool done there.

-Episode 7, where Sabrina Morningstar was on the set of seemingly CAOS could’ve been better executed too. It felt like a filler until the end. Idk I was expecting to like that episode the most but didn’t.

-The episode where Blackwood becomes Emperor seems fucking stupid too. Why the hell would he wish to be Emperor of all things? He’s always wanted to be like the King of Hell or something. That would’ve made so much more sense.

-Harvey’s dad just accepting the fact that he’s surrounded by Witches (I know he had his memories erased during the band episode) when he’s a Witch Hunter? Isnt he? They just up and forgot that tid bit it seems?

-Ms. Wardwell getting nothing aside from being Blackwood’s devoted helper felt like a waste of her character too.

-Nick just up and I guess dying at the end. I mean we don’t really know what the sea of sorrows is. He could just be swimming to briefly visit Sabrina from time to time but idk felt kinda dumb.

-I’m kinda of confused where Sabrina went when she died. Is she the same Sabrina? I’m just thoroughly confused because there were two of her that died. I cannot remember if they had separate souls at this point or if they had the same that was split. But if they both died would they not merge together if they were the same? Therefore making her full again, so a different person?

-Lastly, idk it just something nitpicky of me. But I hated that inside The Void looked like a carbon copy of inside The Afterlife (of hereafter/thereafter whatever it was.) Idk unless they are playing off that she never escaped it if it happens to get picked up by another network. But it looked too similar. The white boxed rooms were the same. The only difference was the words and that the paintings in the afterlife were in color.

#chilling adventures of sabrina #caos #Sabrina #what a disappointing season #nonetheless I guess I’m glad we got it #I’m pretty sure this season got its episode number reduced which would explain why most of it seems rushed #but still #I cried in the last episode nonetheless

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fictionfromafar · 3 years ago

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The Transparency Of Time by Leonardo Padura 🇨🇺

The Transparency Of Time

Leonardo Padura

Translated by Anna Kushner

Bitter Lemon Press

Publication Date: 10 June 2021

#RandomTTours

A new Leonardo Padura novel is never a small matter. Recognised as Cuba’s finest living author by The Washington Post, Padura is one of the most highly regarded contemporary novels in Latin America. Unlike many other Cuban writers, Padura continues to live in Cuba. He has written historic novels on Ernest Hemmingway and Leon Trotsky yet he is perhaps best known for his seminal Havana Quartet featuring Lieutenant Mario Conde. These were brought to the attention of English language readers in the mid noughties by Bitter Lemon Press. Televised by Spanish television as Four Seasons In Havana these are available to watch on Netflix.

Despite releasing Conde from active police service, Padura has been keen to return at times to return to his most celebrated character, this is the ninth Conde novel. In Havana Fever we saw Conde visiting the older homes of Havana for book collections which he could then sell for profit. While this would provide him with sustenance, on principle he would refuse to sell Cuban literature to international buyers as he believed the country’s treasures should always remain on the island.

Central to all Padura’s novel is of course Cuba and through his words, as readers we learn how his city has transformed over the years. Set in Autumn 2014 a month before Conde’s sixtieth birthday, neither Conde or Havana are in particularly good shape: “Mario Conde knew perfectly well that being old – even being old without being an old fart – is a horrifying condition due to all it entails, but especially because it carries with it an incontrovertible threat; the statistical and physiological approach of death… just one, one quarter of life left.”

Furthermore, he is struggling financially as he is finding fewer books even with the help of his dealing friend Yoyi. However his luck appears to change when the latter puts him back in contact with Bobby Roque, who was a fellow pupil of Conde’s school many years before. Roque, who used to be a staunch Marxist is now a flamboyant Santeria practitioner and homosexual, needs Conde to investigate the disappearance of his younger lover Dubois who vanished taking many of Roque’s valuables including his treasured statue of the Virgen de Regla – a black Madonna. This is particularly precious as Roque believes it has healing powers.

Conde takes on the case as it is financially beneficial to him and starts by speaking to his former Sergeant Manola to obtain details on Dubois. When the information received is not as expected, Conde delves into a far larger investigation where two men lose their lives.

Leonardo Padura’s novels have a fantastic sense of setting and we can feel Conde’s love hate relationship with the city where he lives: “Every time he wandered the streets of central Havana, increasingly run down by poverty and neglect, Conde was determined to find, beneath the layers of dirt, age and precariousness of all kinds the possibility that any of its charms had survived.” For Conde’s generation life has become very difficult, almost depressive - a contemporary of his points out that “you have good days and then you have days that are worse.”

This hardship is maybe the reason that Conde is then happy to spend some of his earnings on a meal and drinks for his friends that would equate to an average Cuban’s weekly earnings. Conde and his friends Rabbit and Candito take a trip to what he terms “the world of the invisible” – these are the shanty town ‘settlements’ where many people from the east of the island move in search of work. They are horrified by the conditions there – “like Haiti, or Africa or Hell. Aside from one priest’s mention of the “speeches and promises” there is no mention of the causes of this depravation - no criticism of the Cuban Government nor the punative US sanctions

The cliché goes that for each person who leaves Havana for the west, another would replace them from the east. Conde has lived in a country which he felt had reduced its misery through concerted will and effort, yet increasingly it seems that the majority live in misery except for those who have benefited from ill-gotten gains. A reoccurring theme is Conde trying to find anyone who actually has a reputable job. There is though still charm to stories such as the man with no shoes.

The book is broadly split between Conde’s investigation, Padura’s examinations of Cuba’s changing society and then separate to these we follow the timeless Antoni Barral during the Spanish civil war and later in the book the blockade of Acre during the crusades. Bear with these parts as they do tie into the book. Providing some vital historical context, they show Padura's willingness to stretch his imagination and those of his readers.

The translation is both lucid and fluid. The translator is Anna Kushner, the daughter of Cuban exiles, who had also translated Padura’s The Man Who Loved Dogs and Heretics; Guillermo Rosales’s The Halfway House and Leapfrog; and Norberto Fuentes’s The Autobiography of Fidel Castro.

Drawn in to work with his former police colleagues Conde finds their generation’s outlook very different to his. We also see him sense déjà vu and sentimentally look back on some previous investigations through the story, but no prior back knowledge of Conde’s earlier novels are required to enjoy The Transparency Of Time. The investigation takes Conde to very different parts of the cities with a large number of potential suspects. His skill and experience are key to solving the mystery behind the Virgen de Regla and its whereabouts. He is also left to conclude that there are actually two invisible cities within Havana.

There are few novelists who can absorb you into both a crime fiction novel and the feel of a city as Leonardo Padura can do. Whether you are new to the series or a seasoned reader, there is plenty to enjoy about The Transparency Of Time even though it does leave you with a melancholic sentiment for his homeland. Many thanks to Alex Hippisley-Cox at Bitter Lemon Press for a free advance review copy of The Transparency Of Time and to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inclusion in the blog tour. Please check out these other reviews.

I am running a book give away to win The Transparency Of Time and Into The Mouth Of A Lion via Twitter

#cubanlife #Cuba Crime Fiction #crime fiction #crimeintranslation #latinamericancrimefiction

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astridthevalkyrie · 4 years ago

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What's your SNK story, how you got into it, etc? Also, whose your favorite character? *lol sorry I accidentally unfollowed you trying to send a dm hah* anyway, thanks for sharing the love!

ooh, thanks for asking! and don’t worry about it :)

so like, the beginning beginning, because i actually remember when i first heard about it, was when the anime first came out and i was a wee middle schooler in private school. a few girls in my holy book class were into it and would talk about it a lot, and i remember being like “oh, is it interesting, what is it about?”

and i remember getting the most dubious look and being told “it’s about giant monsters splitting people in half and then eating them, you probably wouldn’t like it” or something along those lines and i was like....yeah they’re right i probably wouldn’t lmao i hate violent stuff, so yeah, never watching that ever.

fast forward like eight years and i meet up with my cousin in december, and he convinces me, my sister and his own sister to give it a shot and binge watch the first season. he said that now that the fourth season was coming out (which even i had seen on netflix, my dad and i watched the trailer and understood none of it), he wanted to rewatch all of it anyways. it took a lot of persuading on my part because i still don’t particularly like violence and gory stuff, but i usually choose stuff we watch together so i kinda felt guilty and agreed. and so we watched the first two episodes that night.

after the first, i was like, this is good, this is intriguing, but i have anxiety and intrusive thoughts and the smiling titan gave me the heebie jeebies. since i had watched it with other people, though, a lot of my nerves were soothed. and then after the second, i was like oh no. oh no, this is gonna be a thing. they’ve joined the military. and for someone who’s pretty anti-military in real life, i’m ridiculously weak for military stories and interesting characters. and i’m especially weak for survival and humanity stories.

we ended up binge watching the first season within a couple of days but held off on watching more because i decided this was something my dad would like, so i planned to show it to him when we got home and then we would watch it together after that. turns out my dad is absolutely terrible at watching stuff without being irritating (he’s bored in any scene without titans??) so i ended up watching most of it myself. all in all, i obviously enjoyed it a lot.

and my favorite character is, embarrassingly and by a lot, levi. he was the only character i had heard of before starting the show, although i knew he wasn’t the main. i had just seen so many fanfics about him back when i was active in the big four fandom, since half the aot fandom had been the levi fandom at one point. when we were watching, i kept teasing my cousin that if levi didn’t show up in the next episode, i was going to stop watching, but in general me, my sister and my cousin’s sister built up so much hype around him that when he finally showed up we got pretty excited. even still, he wasn’t my favorite and i was pretty confused on how people liked him because in season 1 his animation is kinda weird and then in season 2 he just wasn’t there at all. i guess absence makes the heart grow fonder though, because i watched a single episode of season 3, watched him scream “kennyyyyyy” and immediately was like “oh <3 hi boo <3 i love you <3″ and then proceeded to write 75,000 words for him in the following months LMAO i haven’t written this much in ages, he pulled me out of like a two year long funk.

also a side note but even before we started watching the show my cousin showed me this same edit of levi like ten times, claiming "this man is so fine" and my cousin is a straight guy which makes that very funny. anyway, that edit is in my favorites now.

that’s not to say i’m not invested in the other characters, i think about all the trios so much, especially since they’re all so angsty. i particularly love eren, mikasa (my second fav because i’m basic like that), jean, annie, bertholdt, hange, gabi, pieck and the others who aren’t as up there are still like. on my mind constantly. it helps that my sister’s so into it, she fuels the brainrot. over the past few weeks, we’ve wasted several hours talking about aot per day, so that should tell you how bad it is.

this was so much longer than it had to be i’m sorry i just got excited. but tldr, my cousin got me into it and my favorite character is captain germaphobe!

#aot #attack on titan #snk #shingeki no kyojin #levi #levi ackerman

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something-tofightfor · 4 years ago

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The Witcher is overrated and the trailer for Cursed had me laughing when it came out. Had no idea it was based off a book. I have no hopes for Shadow and Bone. I can’t even bring myself to read the books.

I really enjoy the lore of The Witcher. My boyfriend’s played the games and really likes them, but I honestly don’t think Henry Cavill is a good actor. He’s very wooden. (I know that’s the point of Geralt, but... ) A lot of it was just very cringey. I think the fight choreography was the best part of the show, and the costumes were probably second, even though the more I looked at them, the cheaper they appeared, even with editing and coloration. (The same person that did colors for Cursed is apparently working on S&B... so that sucks).

And the leaks of the S&B costumes are... not good. Cosplays have looked much closer to what I imagined the keftas to look like, so I’m just SCARED. (and I 10000005% hate steampunk as a general genre, which is how people are describing the overall look and feel - especially in Ketterdam... so... fuck me, I guess)

And don’t even get me started on Jaskier. I wanted to throw him off a cliff whenever he started singing. Someone in Cursed was singing too, so if they have unnecessary music in S&B the same way it seems they always do in Netflix shows (I fucking LOVE Stranger Things, but the whole Dustin/his girlfriend singing at the end of S3 killed it for me.)

... and Cursed. Holy friggin hell, it was BAD. The CGI looked so damn fake. The dubbing was bad. The SOUND was bad. I think the rating on that is MA... and it seemed very young, so if S&B is intended to be for an even younger audience? Y I K E S. I’m really disappointed in what I saw (parts of the last 3-4 episodes) ... because when I think of Frank Miller, I think of high quality content and characters. And this was NOT IT.

I read the first book when I figured out what Ben was doing last September. I had to force myself through it. It’s nearly a year later, and I still have not found the motivation to pick up the final two in the trilogy, OR any of Six of Crows. (Though I read Ninth House and it was INCREDIBLE. So apparently, LB *can* actually write, and has learned from the atrocity that was Shadow and Bone). Look. If the budget is as low as it’s reported to be... Shadow and Bone is in trouble. I understand it’s possible to make quality content with practical effects and very little editing... but for the type of show it’s going to be, it needs the special effects, especially for things like the creatures, the light and shadows and the fighting. But ... if the effects are going to be as poorly done as they were in Cursed, I’d almost rather someone offscreen simply describing what we’re supposed to be watching.

I started out hopeful that Ben and Archie could save it. I stayed hopeful when I saw how excited Ben was about the character. I lost hope when I read that they were making it for “families”. I lost more hope when I saw costume leaks. I started hoping that it gets canceled after season 1 drops so that Ben can move on to adult roles again (STAY AWAY FROM DISNEY SIR) when Leigh and Eric started tweeting about how bad shooting was going and how many changes were made and how many concessions they were making to get the show done as close to on time as possible.

If you’re going to make something, make it properly. Don’t half ass it, and I feel like with a 22 million dollar production budget that has to be split between 8 episodes... that’s not made properly. (To compare: 22 million is about what it cost for 2.25 episodes of The Witcher, or 2.25 episodes of The Crown or 3.8 episodes of Stranger Things season 1.)

A quick search led me to this: a sample Netflix budget template. 2.75 million per episode spread out across all of these things?!!?!!?!!!?!?!

I hope I’m wrong and it’s watchable at the very least because it’s the only Ben content I have to look forward to in the near future... and that absolutely pains me.

Sorry this got long, Anon! Thanks for sending this!

#ask something-tofightfor #anonymous asks #thanks anon!#I refuse to tag with the title of the show #because i don't want to deal with the people trying to defend it #it's gonna be bad #i was pleasantly surprised with gold digger #but there's no way on this one #it just looks and seems so CHEAP

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militant-holy-knight · 5 years ago

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Castlevania Season 3 Review: Ellis is Gonna Ellis I Suppose.

Warning: Massive spoilers ahead because I don’t give a shit anymore so scroll down really fast if don’t want to get spoiled

Being a Castlevania fan is pure suffering, man. Not only is the video game franchise being put on ice by Konami at the time of writing, but your only form of enjoyment is a hit-or-miss Netflix Original written by a guy who admits never playing the games. I tried to enjoy the first season despite it being only four episodes long, and same thing with the second one which was longer but had a plethora of issues. Now it’s the third season, which took a year-long break to be made, and I am absolutely sorry to say it’s the absolute lowest point of the show: not only repeating the issues from the previous season, but amplifying them and failing to do anything interesting with anything new that is given. I will elaborate why I think so in this review.

So after Season 2, Dracula has been destroyed, our heroes have split up with Trevor and Sypha going their own way while Alucard has stayed behind in his father’s castle overlooking the Belmont Hold. Carmilla and Isaac have survived and are preparing to build an whole new army, the former to establish a new empire and the latter to get his revenge on her for betraying Dracula.

Even though the stakes are lower than the possible extinction of the human race which was the (possible) outcome from Season 2 which never actually came into fruition, you’d imagine they would do something inciting with this new status quo... But you’d be wrong. This season as a whole felt like padding in all conceivable manners. Not only was the pacing atrocious (which I will get into a minute), but really, nearly all of the events that occurred could have been omitted and the storyline as a whole wouldn’t have been affected somehow.

The pacing was the worst problem in Season 2 since you had the protagonists locked down inside a hold to do research on how to kill Dracula and endless exposition among the bad guys that some defenders call “vampire politics’ which ultimately went nowhere. The pacing in Season 3 is even worse since not only is it longer (10 episodes this time), you have more storylines now but each of them move at completely sluggish pace with a disproportional large amount of exposition and comparatively few action.

The Castlevania games were level-based games which had you visiting several distinct locations whether if it was inside or outside the castle. An adaptation series of Castlevania would make more sense if it was episodic in nature, perhaps even with monster of the week formula. It would have been better off for it, but the show is attempting channel Game of Thrones with an over-aching arc with sprawling individual storylines whose episodes are build up for an epic confrontation at the end, but it fails in that regard.

Trevor and Sypha’s storyline was absolutely pointless - they have no idea of the larger threat brewing with two demonic armies about to clash against each other, but they are stuck doing what basically amounts to a sidequest, investigating a evil cult operating in a small town which takes a needless long time to conclude. They completely fail in saving the townsfolk from being sacrificed and end up discovering that one of the characters that has been helping them is actually a monster all along. This only serves to make their effort completely pointless and leave the pair absolutely bitter and angry.

Not that there is any urgency in stopping Carmilla or Isaac since they come nowhere near close to trading blows to one another. In fact, Carmilla doesn’t come anywhere close to achieving her goal of raising an army of demons with Hector (who has been enslaved by her for this purpose) and it’s actually one of her lieutenants Lenore that solves this problem at the end. On the other hand, Isaac gets the closest thing to an highlight in this season by experiencing something of an character development since he is questioned by several characters that maybe humans aren’t so bad as a whole. The problem is that his development becomes inconclusive since he doesn’t learn to be anymore different than he used to.

Alucard gets sidelined like you wouldn’t believe. He spends the entire season in his castle now with two new characters, Japanese twin hunters that seek to be training so they can free their people from the vampires... Aaaaand they try to fuckin kill him, which comes out from nowhere specially after an extremely uncomfortable threesome between him and the twins. And just in case you thought the previous season was depressing enough with Alucard breaking down in tears completely alone in his castle, this one ends not only with Alucard still alone, crying, but now emulating his dad by leaving the impaled corpses of the twins in the castle’s entrance to scare off any trespassers which is the closing shot of this season.

But for me, the biggest letdown has to be Hector. He was one of my favorite characters from the games, having starred his own entry Curse of Darkness for the PS2 where he actually turns on Dracula on behalf of humanity and pursues Isaac for murdering his wife. Here, he does absolutely fuck all during the entire season except being bossed around by Carmilla’s sisters. The guy had such cool powers of summoning Innocent Devils and wielding all types of weapons (including a lightsaber) is reduced to a whimpering slave, whom I have absolutely no hope of seeing in his absolute glory. The worst part is that it was very predictable - the moment I saw Lenore saying that both her and Hector should flee together, I knew she was gonna screw him in some way. The irony is that unlike the other storylines which pull some kind of mean twist in the last second, here you already can tell what is going to happen next.

The new characters frankly do nothing for the story. The aforementioned Carmilla’s sisters are pure window-dressing and only Lenore gets the shit done by herself might I add completely independent from the others and specially Carmilla herself (who does nothing). A video game character actually does get featured - Comte of Saint-Germain, who is some kind of magician in search of his loved one who got lost in another dimension. Another step down from his video counterpart who is a time guardian that preserves the cosmic balance (though it seems they were channeling the historical figure rather than the character that happens to share the same name given their ignorance for the source material).

There are of course those typical Warren Ellis moments like three mentions of bestiality (and one goatfucking as usual) and anti-Christian commentary, though it seems to be sending some kind of mixed messages this time: in one hand Sypha comment that while she hates God, she at least admires Jesus because of his sacrifice which can be considered one of nicest things that atheists can comment about Christianity... And then the next episode features an demon that used to be a Greek philosopher who lived during post-Constantinian Roman Empire and was persecuted by Christians because of his intellect. Oh dear. With that said, it’s rather odd this guy became a demon so maybe he had it coming?

Overall, this season is a lot more weaker and lacking than Season 2, which at least had the climax in Episode 7 which some people were willing to forgive the dullness from that season. But Season 3′s climax is completely unfocused, interlaced with unnecessary and uncomfortable sex scenes and doesn’t even feature classical music from the games, which was the saving grace from the last time.

So did it have any upsides? I guess so if you look hard enough like Isaac’s schizophrenic “should I hate all humans or not” dillema which goes unresolved. Hardly anything that elevates the season or make it redeemable in some way. To be perfectly frank with you, I don’t know if I have any interest in keeping with this show. It blew away any good will Season 1 and 2 did, it barely moved the plot forward (and that if it has an overaching plot at all), the protagonists being disconnected to the main threat at large and quite frankly, none of the antagonists are as interesting as Dracula, I just don’t care what happens next. Specially if the pacing and exposition remain in place. In theory, if the series was restructured to be episodic instead of trying to be Game of Thrones, my interest in the show would have been renewed but it’s too little too late.

I guess in retrospect I should be grateful that Season 1 was so short had I knew later ones would be so tedious. There is so very little to do with Castlevania: Dracula’s Curse when you already got rid of the main villain and you don’t move the plot forward. If they want to regain my interest, do a Leon Belmont season that is episodic or heck anything else, but I don’t see them doing this because they have to give closure to this story arc, which already grew past it’s welcome and wasted everyone’s time with a season that amounted to nothing more than filler. Well, my patience has been worn thin.

#Castlevania #reviews

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badlydrawndrawnings · 5 years ago

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atwq book four thoughts

guess who somehow got a lot of free time yesterday and made the bold decision to finish reading the last atwq book? me!

guees who feels like they jinxed qwerty’s fate from the previous book of being arrested, but alive, even though i bet daniel handler planned it from the start? still me!

guess who is rather upset netflix accidentally gave a clue/spoiler on the identity of hangfire?

also me.

okay, so first off, to get something out of the way. i love this book. i really do. it had me on suspense every chapter.

theodora figured out qwerty was in vfd (...when did she figure out? not long after sharon reveal herself as a fake vfd member? or during the period she and lemony weren’t speaking to each other?), and god she really was willing to take the blame on being qwerty’s killer. did she think maybe she once again screw up, but this time there was no going back because the screw up got someone killed? after all she seem to selfishly went to break qwerty out for a good evaluation. maybe she thought if things went different, he would still be alive. and given the schism happened, vfd while not divided yet, this is like a sign on how another librarian’s death in the long, long future, will be blame on an innocent party and things go to hell again in the pursuit of justice and truth.

also, ghede and gifford also knew of the coup as well? or at least knew the sbg was doing something and they’re like let them do this shit and we can watch it’s gonna benefit us in the long run’. also, holy shit olaf name drop take two with beatrice herself! i didn’t think while knowing each other young mean they actually hanged out with one another to think they’re possibility friends. this puts the opera night even worse. beatrice must have knew olaf’s parents. with my headcanon of olaf parents being caring parents to olaf and used their connections to get their son back earlier than others, this is just awful.

getting back on track from the mess that is vfd there’s a murder on a train (agatha christie ahoy!). i admit several weeks ago i made the decision to watch snowpiercer and train to busan so i couldn’t really take the murder on the orient express shout out clearly and kept on thinking of the wild willy wonka and the chocolate factory/snow piercer theory. and zombies in south korea.

all the damn sbts kids just thought it great to share the one brain cell to be on the same train (pip and squeak just follow in their taxi; cleo and jake had to travel through time in the dilemma to catch up with them). ornette got her time to shine with her artistic/sculpting skills and there’s some light on the subject of the lost family (of course it’s a fire that took ornette’s mom life. fires seems to be a way to kill a lot of parents). i was right to call her gung-ho working with lemony, she just agreed to make fake bb statues for moxie and kellar and was like ‘oh shit the two are sharing a brain cell. hangfire could figure something is up what have i done’ and had to make something else to give to lemony. i uh..wonder if seth has a reason to draw her baseball cap all...fuzzy. just a weird question.

kellar’s sister lizzie shows up. i’m going to be honest. she has the bad luck of appearing last and under two disguises that went over my head (she sure fooled me!). i do have some thoughts that surround her and the haines family, but that needs me to re-read the last two books to make sure i’m not imagining something . will say lizzie is much younger and shorter than i thought given her first illustration. i hope maybe a re-read will make me get some new insight on her. also, hi sally murphy. i’m glad lizzie got out with maybe your help (i mean, why else would she want to high tail it out of there).

the identity of qwerty’s killer was something i should have seen coming due to how the mitchum parents are more subdue. i want to slap stew’s parents. they spend all their time bickering they only got their shit together to see how their ‘precious’ son is really a bully and killer and working with the villian under their damn noses. i almost feel sorry for them because shit stew more or less blackmail his parents into covering the crime but at the same time...this call could have been avoid if you pay attention to how your son isn’t the angel you think he is..and you two are still fighting with one another please get your priorities straight i beg you. i admit i almost want to slap stew but i don’t slap kids, and i think if i exist in the snicket world i would get murder first by him.

qwerty’s death and the fact he’s a vfd member just hurt me so bad and i’m still kind of grieving over him. for one, i felt like i should have seen qwerty being part of vfd coming. he’s a sub-librarian. while not a sub-sub-librarian, the fact is qwerty is such so damn helpful to lemony i should have seen he was just doing his best to help lemony because theodora wasn’t honestly...wasn’t doing a good job at a chaperone. but he couldn’t blow away his cover because he wasn’t supposed to interfere in the apprenticeship and honestly he was just happy to be a sub-librarian helping children find what they would love reading.

but qwerty isn’t the only death in this book. i got to copy-paste something from an old atwq post in feburary 8, something i made as a joke, because oh boy, this part is the one negative i have honestly.

he tried to pretend to be her father! i know his voice mimicry is basically akin to juni cortez’s mimicry, but this is just cruel had ellington been there.

about a week later, i made the decision to rewatch netflix asoue. now, the first time i watch season two [edit lmao i actually don’t remember if it was season two i think i hated season two so much i could have blur two and three together i got to rewatch the show again definitely. edit two: okay, i’m certain it was season two i’m 98% certain it was was a pause and read easter egg that’s why i couldn’t remember what season exactly damn easter eggs] i honestly was like ‘so they gave nero a last name. coolio. feint isn’t a surname i was expecting but this is the netflix show this probably isn’t canon to the books’.

on the rewatch, after the austere academy part two ended, i realized something is...off, with nero now. he’s mocking people. and his voice, while not mimicking them, is like...it’s like nero could have inherit mimicry from someone but it never went through. or maybe he did got it but it’s not at its full potential without the proper teaching of someone with the skill...like a father, perhaps?

so the kronk meme is playing in my mind, but it’s the edit of him saying ‘oh no, it’s all coming together’. and given patrick warburton also voice kronk, it felt more like lemony snicket decided to materialize right behind me, be an asshole, and thought it funny to do a commentary on my possible realization hangfire, in the netflix show at least, couldn’t keep his dick in his pants and bore a bastard son in an adulterous affair and ellington has a half brother in the world she doesn’t know about and i hope she never learns about.

(given barrymore feint is just a cameo of barry sonnenfeld, i guess the bullshit gene i talked about in another post regarding a theory who netflix!h is should be renamed the feint gene.)

so reading the third book, and especially this book, i kept a close eye on any mentions to ellington’s dad and hangfire’s behavior. i kept on saying in my mind ‘please don’t be who i think you are’. and bam. armstrong feint is hangfire. i feel like if netflix didn’t have the need to make an atwq reference in nero’s surname, and if i was smart enough to have the book clues smack me in the face (i feel there are clues somewhere, and hangfire dropped all pretenses and just being ‘himself’ in book two was one), i wouldn’t be so angry and upset by this reveal. i more or less got spoil and put the pieces together due to an adaptation, and i should have known better than to do a re-watch while reading atwq. i should have consider the possibility of easter eggs to atwq.

anyway, lemony snicket thought it great to kill hangfire by feeding him to a copy bombinating beast (the tadpoles!!). with ellington right freaking there. with most of his sbts friends there to witness. moxie can’t even look lemony in the eye anymore (no more best friends anymore). everything happened just like that and after finishing the book and taking a walk around the living room, i have to say hangfire is a good villain. he achieved his goal of getting the bombinating beast, even if it’s a copy. he’s a very competent villain who succeed in almost every book in some way or form. he played everyone like a puppet and was a threat that is more akin to tmwabbnh and twwhbnb’s level of villainy. kudos to you hangfire i’m impressed.

hangfire totally got it coming too. however, i do feel...hurt in his death, if only for ellington’s sake. during the walk because i realize ellington reminded me of a character from a different fandom i’m in. there’s some differences that i won’t get into (it’s...complicated for the other fandom), but they’re cut from almost the same cloth: teenage girls with shitty fathers who are using them for their own selfish goals. thoughts for ellington and her future formed faster for me than for the other atwq kids as a result:

post-canon!ellington (a few days later when she finally gets her stuff figure out), has a simple list. 1: avoiding anyone with a vfd tattoo or give shady lemon vibes -ellington split asap after she and kit broke out and have 100% certainly no one is after them, but not before stealing some things from kit, one being notes of vfd volunteers (she thinks). 2: find a new place to live. 3: figure out a new name that isn’t an anagram, because the inhumane society once they heard the news, is probably going to try to get her if they get wind she is hangfire’s daughter and possible ‘successor’. ellington wants nothing to do with the bombinating beast. she never wants to see the statue or anything similar, or hear the words again.

adult!ellington (under a fake name of course), while accepting all that happened, hasn’t forgive lemony snicket. yes, her dad was a villain. yes, she finally understand her dad isn’t the kind naturalist and man, and used her for the biggest ‘what’ event of her life that is also a very selfish goal. many times in the past though, ellington wonders if she missed any signs of her dad’s descend to who he eventually became, or if he hid it very well to where he was wearing two masks all this time, one hiding his true nature. ellington even wonders at one point, dad was going convince her to willingly work with him without the fake kidnapping and had to change his plans to something crueler.

ellington will never know for sure. this is why ellington can’t forgive lemony and will say it to face if they ever meet again. what ellington hates the most out of her father’s death is that she can never tell dad all of her feelings about his wrong doings. she can ask all the questions burning at the back of her mind, or yell her frustrations how terrible a father he is for faking his kidnapping and getting her to do his dirty work, getting her to use her loyalty of family to do things she would never do under normal circumstances. she ask questions and yells at the only photo left of armstrong feint...

and in the end, she knows he’ll never answer, and it hurts to deal with the unknown. adult!ellington doesn’t do the yelling and questioning to the photo as much. partly because she did ‘settle’ on what might be an possible answer, but mostly because the photo is pretty faded to where it’s less ‘armstrong feint’ and more ‘hangfire’. once in awhile though, she slips up like old times.

adult!ellington with her new life (she travels a lot, pays in cash most of the time, and has no set resident; she still love coffee) tends to think of the past, especially when it came to what she had with lemony snicket. did lemony like her? was she just a question in need of solving? ellington admits to possibly liking him, but it was so long ago maybe she just thinks she liked him to have a ‘positive’ memory of the boy she haven’t seen in years that she kind of wants to see again, if only to yell at him for robbing her of something important. his name lands on her radar a lot, twice from the daily punctilio. the first one was learning of lemony snicket’s crimes, and it was an accident.

the second time, she learn of his death, though she read the daily punctilio on purpose in hopes of a name drop. adult!ellington ended up finding some children’s book, and made the mistake of going to the back of it and find a photo of lemony snicket. not really though. lemony is hiding his face (ellington hates it) and she buys it to know what it’s about. it spiral to where she bought the next two books because she wants to know if the baudelaires orphans are real (and because lemony doesn’t seem the same anymore from his writings). ellington settles on real when she pulls out kit snicket’s notes she stolen and cross references names, and even travels to the locations to them to make sure. after the third book publication, the series goes on ‘hiatus’ due to the daily punctilio and their announcement. ellington doubts he’s dead, but couldn’t help attend the funeral. ellington is certain lemony snicket is alive, because she convinced she saw him at his own funeral.

#atwq #all the wrong questions #why is this night different from all other nights #ellington feint #hangfire #asoue #a series of unfortunate events #netflix asoue #asoue netflix #lemony snicket #spoilers #this is a text post

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